There is Only War
by An Old Nemesor
Summary: In the closing days of 399 M42, a sinister figure enacts an age old plan, and the horrors of the 42nd millennia are thrust into a galaxy far far away. Now, the Republic and Separatist alliance must quickly adapt to their new situations and adversaries, or face utter destruction by those so entrenched in war that peace is utterly incomprehensible to them.
1. Prologue

**Authors Note: Well, this might be a long one, but if you care about things like calcs, universe comparisons, and a basic overview of the crossover, then you may want to read it. Anyways, hello, and welcome to my first full length story. I have actually meant to write this since 2008 but kept procrastinating and getting overworked and so on. Well, now I'm finally on it. This story is not meant to be like much of the crossovers you see in the archives. This is not a VS story, where one universe is thought to be better than the other or just wanted to be seen fighting so the author makes a story about it stomping some other universe. This is not a story about inserting a protagonist from one tale into another one, more or less replicating the story with the same plot but a theoretically different main character (ie lazily written). This is not a self-insert, only a madman would want to insert into anything to do with 40k, and there are enough of those in 40k as it is. **

**This is a story about a comparison between the two universes of Warhammer 40,000 and Star Wars. This is about comparing themes, characters, and the overall mechanics of the universes, as well as examining the reaction of both to the other's existence. As such, let me get a few things out of the way: I will be equalizing a few things. "But Nemesor" I can hear you say "source X said Y about output of lasguns, so if we scale…." Let me stop you right there. On average, showings for 40k ships and weapons are leagues above Star Wars ships and weapons, but if I were to write a story taking such averages it would be a one-sided curb stomp, which, while potentially amusing, is not what I am aiming for. As such, I am going to say now lasgun=clone basic blaster, clone armor=flak armor, powersword=lightsaber, starships have equal stats (ie range speed etc) and I will be using a ton for ton parity DPS wise (comparing imperium to Star Wars ships) meaning that a venator will have the damage of a ship its size in the imperium navy. Of course, there are some things I won't be equalizing, like ship armor and most tanks/other weapons, as they are intrinsic to the way one universe functions. So, if you see something that should be more/less powerful than it is, it's probably me trying to balance things so it's kinda fair. **

**Now I say kinda for the same reason I started this crossover, because the universes are very different. It's the same reason that I chose the clone wars era. Star Wars is very black and white. It's a simplistic universe with simplistic themes. This isn't a bad thing, in fact the lack of philosophy makes it easy to understand and enjoy for the masses. In every era it's the hero's vs usually the sith, who are clearly in the wrong despite attempts to make them gray. There is some nuance, but there is a clear good guy-bad guy line. The clone wars is the best era for this to show, as not only is the enemy a clearly evil sith lord lead coalition of murder bots who are naturally much more acceptable to kill off en-masse than people, and all the jedi are on one side and they are fighting for freedom and democracy (supposedly, who cares about that whole slave army thing right?). I am obviously simplifying things here a bit but this is the basic jist of the era. **

**That's not what 40k is like. It's a place of grey areas, tragedy, loss, and suffering. It's a place where even the Arch-Traitor is a sympathetic character (if a gullible moron) and People Die. Those capitalizations were well earned. One of the first books I read, nightbringer, loses half its cast before the final battle, where it loses more. This is true of most books in the series, especially during the Horus heresy. Heroes are just people with flaws, and everyone has a good reason for the things they do, in their own minds at least. No one started out screaming BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD to the skies, they were driven there by circumstance and a few mistakes. And it's not a story about the lofty idealism of a hero, the hero's and monsters are often quite hard to tell apart. And even then, they are not lofty exemplars, but soldiers and murderers on the front lines, desperately doing all they can to buy their species a precious few more seconds before they go down. Because this isn't the story of Anakin Skywalker, the hero and chosen one, it's the story of a guardsmen muffling his best friends screams as he bleeds out so the cultists won't find them, or the Overlord who butchers an entire innocent world so his species might one day again have things like families and souls, or an Autarch who kills a child because one day that child will lead the Imperial Navy to his home, or the marines on Slaughterhouse III. It's a story about the blood and the dirt and those that die there. In truth, I had thought a better comparison might be against star trek, but I don't know enough about that show to make one. And that is the reason ground combat won't be the same. Star Wars just isn't prepared for the horrors of the 42****nd**** millenia, and it will show. **

**This will be a story with a multitude of viewpoints so that I may attempt to best show the clashing of themes and environs that I speak of. It will start in blood, and not end happily. Expect massive character death, suffering, and generally bad things happening to good (and bad) people. It will be a story about the struggle against inevitability, the horrors of war, and what happens when two so very different universes meet. **

**Now, on the topic of inter-universe meetings, some handwaving must be done. The force will not be affected by all the beings due to a lack of midiclorians, which will be done to avoid giving all the force users seizures when the new wall of hate and horror enters their universe. This is emotional only though, certain things that effect the warp will translate. Also, there will be one or two stable hyperspace lanes through the Cicatrix. Originally, I was going to take it and some other thing but eventually I realized how much I had started nerfing factions and that was not in the spirit of a true crossover. I will make an allowance saying the force makes things less vulnerable to chaos corruption because otherwise the republics trusting nature would doom it in days, though corruption will still happen it takes longer. In force users like jedi/sith it almost fully protects them just so I don't have sheev send the republic to its doom for daemonhood as that's kinda what would happen. As for other factions: Tau/Druhkari/Imperium/Orks: Untouched. Aeldari/Ynnari/etc: All their plans got ruined by the new variables. Necrons: Kinda like the eldar, but the variables let them awaken tomb worlds easier due to all the new distractions peeling off reinforcements. Tyranids: Distracted by something in between the galaxies from the EU, but they'll be back in a bit, and somehow even worse. Now, this story was originally going start slow, as all factions will be in what I shall refer to as an "oh god emperor what" phase when they notice the number of stars just doubled and there are a lot more signals to receive, so they won't immediately act as they normally would. But then I realized that the number of factions that live by the way of the yolo is enough that we would see half the republic assaulted by day two, and the imperium and such have their fair share of similar commanders, so expect this story to escalate damn fast. On the matter of the holonet, even the orks know how to hack, so the holonet will come under siege immediately, and serve as an inadvertent spy network through reporters and more. Fortunately for the republic, none of these factions get along so they will all be sabotaging each other, though one will have an upper hand. Said faction will be why the net doesn't get eaten by scrapcode. Unfortunately for the republic, the fact the net is no longer under their control will start to show itself in increasingly overt ways. **

**As for numbers for battles, 40k production estimates can get really silly really quick (like, mid ends surpass the droid ICS quote, you know the one) but because things might need to change the only constant for numbers as of yet is that there will be a lot more droids and I'll be taking the 1 per hundred quote as literal. There will be millions of ships for each side though, that's unavoidable with how numbers have been escalating in 40k. This will be taking place after christophsis for Star Wars, and current 40k. As it is, battles are escalating in 40k, so expect huge ones. As for BFG:2, those characters are likely to show up at some point, but the timeline of the game will be messed with a bit as a combo of the three campaigns so that I can use everything. **

**Oh, and this is un-beta'd, so it won't be the best. **

The World was burning. The servants of the Dark Gods had put it to the torch when they arrived, in worship of their sadistic masters, in a test of their superweapon's firepower, but mostly because they could. Its atmosphere was almost spent, burned up in the life wiping infernos that the massive construct's warp cannon had set off, and the ground cracked and burned as its shattered crust slid inwards in an attempt to fill the places left empty by the now vanished planetary core. The sound of tectonic plates cracking and clashing together filled the air, and the world seemed to be screaming in its death throes. That was good, the creature thought, as all was going according to plan.

The metal abomination strode across the near molten surface of the stricken celestial body and gazed upwards at an object far to distant for a mortal to see. Several million kilometers away from the creature's location lay the same fleet that had burnt the world to ash, and at its heart lay the massive construct that had been using the former agri-world for test firing at its forefront flanked by hundreds of pirate vessels. The disparity in size between them and their target was absurd, as they seemed to be but pinpricks before it. Larger than ancient Sol, the sphere of plain grey metal seemed to be to massive to truly comprehend, and a true prize no doubt to the leader of these corsairs. Had not a half-breed Iron Warriors mongrel come through the skull harvest with an arm made of the stuff and won the tournament handily? Such had the creatures mindshackled slaves whispered into the Tyrant of Badab's ears, along with the location and nature of this place. Now, so much of the wonderous material stood before the Chaos Lord, and all that remained was to take it.

But no matter what he did he could not. His drills and mining vessels could not pierce it, and the bombardment of his fleet did not seem to scratch it. Indeed, even straying near it would send his warriors plunging into madness and delusion, dealing terrible damage to themselves and their ships as they thrashed about in its grips. All that was left to him then was the choice to fragment the sphere with his mightiest weapon, one that had been facing a series of mechanical errors until mere moments ago, delaying him for weeks on end. Strangely, it had gone from complete non-functionality to complete activation in a matter of minutes, as if it had been deliberately tampered with, but who would be capable of such a feat? Either way, the time was upon the warlord, and so the fortress began to hum with unnatural energy as the power of the empyrean built around its main gun. Far below, long dead eyes moved from the fortress to the skies above it, as second by agonizing second the stars slowly inched closer and closer to their predestined positions. And then, they were at them. At long last, the stars were finally right. The cruel, metallic sound that came from the creature's mouth could in some respects be considered laughter, though it was far more sadistic and mocking than any sound made by a living being could ever be. As the echoes of his amusement bounced across the devastated plains of a dying world, Orikan the Diviner saw his visions from before there was a mankind at last come true. At last, the spear of warp energy pierced the metallic skin of the sphere, as the material seemed to ripple and shift it opened wider and wider, and the Tyrant's prize seemed at hand.

Then came what might be considered a sound, if sounds resounded through a thousand dimensions. The battle lines of the fleet buckled and writhed as the ships were tossed about like dust in a gale as a _roar_ tore through real space with the force of a dying star. The planet below at long last imploded into itself, its lone inhabitant now halfway across the galaxy, in no way eager to be near what had been unleashed. As the wound in the living metal opened further and further of its own accord, out came madness made flesh, seeming to be both very impossibly old and so very, very angry. As he looked upon the devourer of stars, Lugft Huron knew at last of his folly, and at last the method of his own death. The monster's dead eyes settled upon the astartes, and reality seemed to twist _downinwardsleftrightcentrallyintoeveronwardsallwasmadnessallwastsara-_

And then it was over. The sky was clear of the great metallic orb, and most of his fleet was gone with it. What remained of his ships he could see through where the roof of his bridge used to be, and none of them looked like they were liable to sail the stars rather than break into a thousand pieces next time he activated their drives. His treasured blackstone fortress lay where it had fallen, cut neatly in two along the waist. As blood loss took its toll on his crippled body and the sus-an membrane dragged his conscious down, all he could do was deliriously stare up at the sea of stars, incomprehensive in the face of its changes. 'But' he thought, as the darkness claimed him, 'there were never this many stars'.

**Coruscant, One Week Post Convergence**

The attitude in the chancellor's office was grim. It matched the atmosphere of the world, its skies now perpetually darkened with Venator and Victory-class star destroyers. It had been seven days since the force had cried out in violation, as if something has wounded it. Since then, the number of star systems able to be detected had doubled, and strange space time anomalies had appeared all across the galaxy. The sky even now pulsed with unnatural purple and redish lights as the Great Scar, as it had become known, the greatest of these anomalies, lit the night sky like a second sun. Hyperspace travel had become very difficult, for only some routes in the north or south had openings in this great wall across the galaxy. Any who tried to enter it, or the secondary but smaller spiral from the galactic north, were never heard from again.

After its appearance, large portions of the galaxy had simply gone dark, with varying affect. Some dead zones as they had come to be called expanded, the force in these areas seemingly being suppressed by whatever lay within. These deadzones where known as Alpha-type deadzones. The second type of deadzones where the massive special anomalies that had been appearing, known as Beta-type deadzones. A lesser type of deadzone, called Gamma-type dead zones, where similar to but lesser versions of the Beta-type. Though the scouting forces did return from these areas, they did so utterly mad, raving about dark gods and demons made flesh. Then were the Delta-type deadzones. They were temporary, but lethal. A shroud would drop upon the area, and by the time a relief force had arrived the world was empty. No one was spared, and in some cases it seemed as if the who population had simply gotten up and left. Meals were still warm, food was still baking, and the doors were unlocked, as if awaiting a friend's arrival. The final, and worst type was the Epsilon-type dead zones. They were mobile, and would clear as they advanced, but to the horror of the galaxy only dead, drained worlds remained behind them. These worlds were drained of all life, water, atmosphere, and even metals, in some cases decreasing the planetary diameter by ten percent or more. In the proximity of Epsilon-type deadzones, the force began to feel fuzzy, as if becoming static and drowned out by some other great presence.

In the wake of these dead zones had appeared monstrous creatures, which had begun immediately rampaging across the galaxy. One appeared to be a group of green sentients that attacked worlds for no other reason but for the joy of it, and as of yet no member of naval intelligence had been able to tell if the series of grunts and yells they used was an actual language or some form of combat signaling. Then came the human empires, not one but two. One seemed to be fiercely xenophobic, and intensely protective of the areas bordering the unknown regions. The other seemed to be incredibly religious and had some form of alien allies that were as of yet unidentified by the republic. Both seemed to favor immensely gaudy imagery and possessed ships decorated to resemble cathedrals, which unfortunately did not seem to impede their combat efficiency. After so many new perils had emerged, and so many worlds had disappeared without a trace, it had been decided that the capitol of democracy in the galaxy had to be better protected, and the defense fleets and platforms reinforced. Which made the additional vessels in the sky, the subject of the meeting, all the more stressful.

"Nal Hutta is gone." The words broke the tense silence that had reigned since the arrival of what was left of the Hutt fleet. Those still alive refused to leave their ships, save for the wounded crime lord, who had desperately needed medical attention. What little they could pry out of his guards sounded like something out of a horror holovid, skeletal figures firing deathly green beams that simply caused their targets to disappear, clawed agile specters cloaked in the flesh of their victims, and the omnipresent almighty storm. The Supreme Chancellor tightened his grip on the armrests of his chair. Nothing was going as planned anymore. He had lost all his deep core holdings to the Great Scar, and now a large portion of the underworld had ceased to exist, devoured by an Alpha-Type deadzone and the monstrous things that dwelled within it. All of Sate's hard work rendered into nothing within the period of a mere week. The news had somehow already spread, despite the security around the capitol's newest guests, and the populace was even more panicked than they had previously been. Morale was at an all time low, and the previous malleable senate needed someone to blame. They were beginning to question his leadership.

"What we need is a victory" the Supreme Chancellor glanced over at his closest aid as if expecting some miraculous idea that could turn this week around, but Sate Pestage had not survived the company of two sith lords by not knowing when to shut his mouth. There was nothing he could say that would not enrage his master further. "Is there ANY good news to be had" the chancellor hissed. Gathering his strength from a combination of mental discipline, acclimatization to sith rage, and the amusing attempts of Mas Amedda to blend into a red background as a large blue man, Sate Pestage finally replied: "Indeed chancellor, your first order of dreadnoughts and battlecruisers has just left Kuat's docks. They should be arriving any day now."

Now that WAS good news. The supreme chancellor relaxed somewhat in his chair. That covered the first mandator-IIs then, but what of their predecessors? "And the garrisoned dreadnoughts, Pestage?" The assistant hesitated, and then continued. "Well, I was somewhat lucky on that front. Alsaka's leader traded it for a safe passage here and promises of security. It seems he doesn't believe his sector will last much longer, which given the green ones' assaults may be correct." He paused and grimaced before continuing. "I _did_ manage to acquire the other two you asked for, but not by my own merit. Ixtlar seems to have fallen prey to a Delta-Type deadzone, and both the planet and ship were empty when I arrived. Its Mandator will arrive once the crew has gotten it up and running, but there were no signs of damage or battle as usual so that should not be long. Humbarine unfortunately was lost to General Greivous's fleet, and the dreadnought was the only survivor. I instructed it to regroup with the fleet here. The other dreadnoughts remain stationed at Anaxes and Kuat as instructed"

The Chancellor gave a silent nod and leaned back to contemplate his options. He swiveled his chair to view the Coruscant skyline through the window, gazing at where the dreadnoughts would arrive in high orbit. "That's acceptable" he began, not looking at his emissary "but not enough. See to it that you acquire more spartii and kaminoan cloning canisters. Divert what you can into additional shipyards." But where to send these new ships…

The Chancellor contemplated what exactly would be the best deployment for these new ships if they were to secure as a morale raising victory, before recalling the distress signal one of his sniveling secret underlings had sent. Wat Tambor had invaded the world of Ryloth, only to be pinned down when a large fleet from the xenophobic human empire arrived and annihilated his ships. His last message before the jamming began was that he was going into hiding in the planet's cave systems. That was a promising opportunity then, defeat the human empire AND the Separatists at the same time, while simultaneously showing that the embattled planets could rely on the Republic to come and save them. Afterword's the clones need only "lose" Tambor and all parties would have been handed a morale boost. As the first of the Mandator-IIs entered orbit, the Chancellor turned his throne to his assistant again, with a smile that even after years of exposure still managed to unnerve Sate. "Contact General Skywalker" the chancellor commanded, "And tell him I have a new mission for him. And a ship."

**AN: And that's chapter one. To be honest the hardest part was deciding where to start. For a while I wanted to do mandalore, and planned out a huge battle for it, but figured it was to much of an escalation to fast, and so started with a "small" battle, by 40k standards anyways. Anyways, this will be the beginning of the first arc, Downfall, where everyone is still getting acquainted with each other and some fools still harbor absurd ideals like "hope" or "empathy" or "a belief they will make it past their next birthday" and so on. Jabba was another candidate for a starter, and maybe I will tell his tale when he awakes, as its actually pretty impressive, but also to short for an opener. He was just REALLY unfortunate with his location during the merge. Bonus points for all those who can fill in the dots in Sheev's missing knowledge here. Anyways, this is the introduction arc, so things will stay relatively down to earth, but once all the players have been introduced, well…**


	2. Arc One: Ryloth-Arrival

**Starting AN: Well, hello again. My apologies for the (kind of) short chapter, but it felt like it was taking to long to generate the full thing so I cut it up into three pieces to give you something sooner rather than later. Part one is "Arrival and assessment" Part two will be the imperial ground battle, and part three is the republic counter attack. To address the comments that don't have PM's doing so all ready, warp storms are one of the types, another is the huge anomalies like the EoT and cicatrix. The rest though I will reveal if you guess them correctly, but they are all 40k cannon things that aren't as noticeable as communication in the imperium is spotty at best. Anyways, I'll be updating chapter one when I upload this, and will do so as I revise chapters for mainly spelling in the future, but I won't mention it those times. So if you remember something differently from how it is, that's why. Oh, and I'll be cross posting this on spacebattles now as I thought that might be a good idea to get more people to notice any mistakes I am making. Anyways, onto the story.**

Roboute Guilliman was not a cruel man by nature. A rarity, for those in his position and in these times. He was one of the few that had stayed true to his father's dreams even after all these years, even in this cesspit of an empire where their so called "god emperor's" life's works and edicts were cast down and decried as heresy. He believed himself to be quite forgiving, even of xenos, provided they accepted their place in assuring humanities ascension to rulers of the stars. Which was exactly why this situation was so troubling.

In many ways, the fate of humanity had always been tied to that of the xenos. They were the ones who had taught mankind the value of the promises and oaths of the non-human during the dark age of technology, and that in the end they could only rely on one another. It had been the green skinned xenos who had caused his father to rush to prepare his crusade, and the rangdan xenos who had cost him brothers. It had been the Aeldari xenos who had created the eye of terror, forever tying the fate of humanity to chaos and the Kinebrach xenos who had crafted the blade that lead to the corruption of his brother Horus and the Ruinous civil war that followed. All these things pointed to a single conclusion, one could not allow for the xenos to run about unattended or their actions would have terrible consequences for the entirety of mankind.

This…republic, was another example of this. Within the republic mankind dwelled with, worked with, allied with, and lived with the xenos, as equals. Though he had nothing against these species himself this was a direct subversion of his father's dreams of human supremacy amongst the stars. Worse, these xenos had designed a system in which it seemed humans were drawn into mediocracy. In what reports he had read of the T'au xenos to the east, they at least seemed able to draw out humanity's innate ferocity and spirit, creating heroes and champions for their own causes. None of his forces had encountered such champions amongst the worlds they had of yet encountered. Even what little they had uncovered about the hive world that was supposedly the capitol of this heretic nation seemed to be a dull world of plain glass and rockrete, having none of the splendor or spirit of an imperial world.

Even more alarming, this complacency seemed to extend to war as well, with almost no members of the general public volunteering to fight a war against a xenos aggressor using what appeared to be rudimentary battle-servitors, instead seeming to rely on an army of clones, though it was possible that this was only the case in the areas so far encountered by his forces. There had been debate amongst the priests of mars over the recovered war-constructs from the other xenos faction they had recently discovered, the opponent of this republic, but it had been decided that the routines and tactics of the skeletal constructs were far to simple to be those of a true abominable intelligence, though to be sure they were still trying to crack the language and code of these xenos. There had also been inquiries into the origins of the clones found so far, but that particular investigation had gotten nowhere yet. Nevertheless, the fact these humans would not act even with their homes invaded and nation under siege meant that these xenos must be having a truly deleterious effect on their very humanity, their souls he was sure the cardinals would insist on adding. This was further evidence that humanity must rule over xenos, not besides them. This republic had to go.

There were further threats to humanity from this republic, this time perhaps to the Imperium's populace as well as the fallen humans that inhabited the republic's worlds. The quality of life, as loathe as he was to admit, seemed to be higher on the worlds he had so far encountered than the average in the imperium. There did not seem to be any hive worlds yet, aside from maybe the capitol of these heretics if the data the adepts had dredged from this "holo net" was accurate. The tech priests had been unable to regain access to the "extended unsecure noosphere" as they had called it, so perhaps the xenos had some form of truly exceptional data defense?

Regardless of the condition of the republic throneworld, the improvements found even on the outskirts of this nation to the ease of life and reduction in required hardships and physical labor may have been the cause of humanity's degraded spirit, as such spirit is forged when there are hurdles to overcome. This ease of life he feared may come to tempt those in the imperium who hear of it, like the technology of other xenos was known to do, which on its own would have been reason enough to destroy the nation. For it truly was a nation of heretics, of humans who had defied his father's will, not whatever the ecclesiarch would take that word to mean.

With such a threat to the Imperium being generated by the Republic's mere existence, the course of action was obvious. If these humans were to be saved from themselves, and the Imperium to be preserved, the Republic had to be purified of its corruptive elements. The most obvious path was also the best path in this case, simply remove them as one would diseased flesh from a wound. The Xenos had to be separated from these humans if they were to be brought into compliance. Once he had annihilated the Xenos homeworlds, the morale of these xenos would plummet, and it would be easier to pick off their colonies one by one with what little forces were not yet tied up in the various wars across the galaxy.

From there, the worlds under republic control would be those with high human populations, and thus the focus of ministorum and ordo hereticus efforts to properly integrate them into the great bulwark of the only true human nation. Those organizations of course would need to be reined in somewhat, or they could cause far more damage than good. He may want to send some personally chosen Astartes overseers, if not to assure these worlds remained prosperous and not subject to harsh subjugation and repressive actions by those fanatics for associating with xenos, then to at least try to prevent that accursed cult from gaining a foothold. It was nothing but a plague upon his father's empire.

Of course, the Inquisition and the other nuisances saw it another way, as utterly intrenched and obsessed as they were with that irritating religion Lorgar had propped up before turning his back on humanity. There had been some times where Guilliman suspected the Lectino Devinitatus was in fact Lorgar's last laugh before he went into open revolt, a last way to sabotage the Imperium before he tried to drag it into the clutches of the dark gods, but he knew better, and took some small comfort in knowing that the religion it had spawned must frustrate his treasonous brother even more than it did him.

In all likelihood, the zealots would try to execute, indoctrinate, or subjugate as many of these humans as they could get away with behind his back due to entirely religious reasons. To them these were xenos loving heathens, and likely didn't even count as humans in their minds. This was an entirely different type of heresy to the cardinals and inquisitors, and as such would be exterminated with extreme prejudice. Any beliefs that these humans had would be stamped out and replaced if they got their way, which while somewhat tragic, as a loss of even more culture would just further show how far humanity had fallen, was also likely necessary, given how much the culture of the republic seemed to have poisoned this branch of humanities minds.

Speaking of his supposed subordinates, the overly religious and unquestionably fanatical organizations had passed several dozen decrees before he had even discovered what was going on, or that there even was a going on. They went on and on about the desecration of the holy human spirit and soul, before offloading a few thousand documents, dossiers, and declarations for him to look over. The first of which lay on his desk before him. His quarters in the Maccrage's Honor seemed much smaller these days, and he struggled somewhat to handle the dataslates without tearing them apart, his gauntlet covered hands very much not meant for such tasks. Were he able to remove his armor, it would be so much easier, but that was just another thing that had been stolen from him by the heresy. The image upon the file was similar to that of humanity, but different enough that it would be considered outside the acceptable bounds of deviation if found among the populous of an imperial world. Across it stamped with the seal of the inquisition was the classification the conclave had decided on, Xenos Horrificus.

While his supposed subordinates had decided (demanded) that this was a threat of the utmost importance that must be dealt with immediately, he simply did not have the available manpower do divert from his campaigns at the moment, nor the time to go himself. Thus, it would be up to local forces to handle this supposed crisis. In truth this particular species was just incredibly unlucky, and it was only sheer coincidence that they would be the first to lose their origin. Listening post O9-Delta732 was one of the first to receive a translator, as convincing local humans to join the Imperium was still in its earliest stages, and thus there were few natives to go around. It had been chosen due to its extreme importance, its location in the galactic southeast letting it monitor three major necron dynasties and the direction of many major hive fleets had arrived from. It was not meant to monitor all regional communications, rather, to monitor when communications stopped, as that was often the only warning something was amiss when it came to the worst xenos opponents the imperium had yet faced.

To do this, it did have to keep track of all the areas comm traffic, and its extremely high quality comm trackers had as of late started picking up a kind of comm traffic it did not recognize. It began to actually listen to those in an attempt to decipher who or what they originated from, and were lucky to have the translator on hand, who explained in broken low gothic that these were republic messages they had intercepted. The Translator could not properly translate most of the message, as his training in gothic was as of yet unfinished, but he did manage to identify the planet being discussed as a Xenos homeworld and was greatly rewarded. From there all that was identified was tracing the signals to the source, and the target was found.

With the location identified, that just left what guard and navy elements to deploy to this particular warzone. There were a few lightly mauled regiments in the area, having managed to escape destruction at the hands of a small tyrranid splinter fleet due to Necron intervention, but most had already been assigned to reinforce Vigilus due to the ever-worsening condition of that warzone. He could redirect all of them, but the world was important, so it was thusly a question of how many he could afford not to send. The armored regiment would be less useful in the claustrophobic street fighting of the void shielded cities, so he could redirect that one without to much risk, and he would need at least an infantry regiment to accompany it...

Roboute Guilliman was not a cruel man, nor one predisposed to acts of violence or mass destruction. But this species, like all in the republic, posed a threat to not just his father's imperium, but all of mankind. And for that, their homeworld of Ryloth would burn.

**Ryloth, 5 days post convergence**

There were many things to be considered when planning a planetary assault. How valuable was this planet to the God Emperor's imperium, and in that vein how much was he allowed to break? How many and how powerful were the anti-orbital batteries you had to worry about, and what were the surviving members of the opposing fleet up to. Could you rely on reinforcements and a steady flow of supplies, or would you have to make do with intermittent munitorum aid and what you could "borrow" from the locals.

Of course, none of this mattered unless you could get through the systems defense fleet. General Al'rahem II of the Tallarn 3rd infantry regiment had been on many warships in his long career, but this was likely the one in the worst shape. The fleet escorting his desert tigers to this god emperor forsaken world had been with him on Nihilas, as they attempted to save the Astartes homeworld from a splinter fleet of leviathan. Despite the assistance of the Death Strike chapter fleet and reinforcements from Kar Duniash, the fleet had been massacred, and none of the vessels left were undamaged. If not for the appearance of the blue and gold crescent ships from what he was told was a local necron dyasnty, that would have been the end of him. Luckily, they left after finishing the splinter fleet off, so it was likely just some xenos being territorial rather than any real intention from the Necrons to take Nihilas, but he had been sent to his next battle to soon to find out.

His regiment had fared no better than the fleet had, though better than most of the other poor fools he had been serving with. Of the thirteen regiments that were deployed to Nihilas, only seven survived, and none intact. Of the 300,000 members the desert tigers had arrived on the planet with, only 75,000 had managed to limp back up the devourer dropship's ramps. Luckily, most of their chimaeras had lasted due to a lack of use, with no need to be driven across open terrain during a defensive siege battle, and a few Tauros had been recovered from an unfortunate regiment fed into the grinder in front of them. Their sentinels had been bolstered in a similar way, but still numbered a measly 5000.

The minervan 63rd tank legion, which he was glad had remained with him, had lost just over half their armor according to colonel Patton, and almost all of their support vehicles, but entrenching hadn't been a goal of this mission, so he could still make do. That left just over 500 hellhounds, which had been quite useful but as such targeted intensely during the siege, 4,250 leman russ's of varying configurations, 1,300 salamanders, 40 macharius heavy tanks, and a lucky 15 working Ragnaroks they had managed to "recover" from one of the fallen kreig regiments. The superheavy complement had been the most effected, having run afoul of a biotitan brood, and was reduced to a squadron of three working and two heavily damaged tanks.

The three superheavy tanks in best condition were the stormlord variant of the baneblade, while the damaged tanks were a stormblade and a standard mars-pattern baneblade. The regiment had originally had several shadowsword variants, to support their heavier tanks in the role of hunting enemy super heavy monstrosities like the hierodule that were expected to be deployed but had been singled out and destroyed early on. At last count he had been informed that they retained only 1,000 of their hydra tanks, so hopefully the xenos didn't have much air power.

The Valhallan 97th artillery regiment, which was also still with him, had suffered almost total loss of their command staff, via having been introduced to a very enthusiastic mawloc that had managed to locate their command bunker. The then lieutenant and now colonel Anastasia had been lucky enough to be knocked out of the area by an errant swipe of the beast's tail, and thus had been the command staff's only survivor. The rest of the regiment had suffered similarly and were down to about 2100 Basilisks and 500 Hydra AAA guns, and attendant staff. All of its lighter artillery had been lost to said mawloc's brethren during one particularly effective tunneling attack at the end of the siege. Had the battle not ended soon after, that may have doomed them in the long run.

Al'rahem himself was in similar condition to the regiments under his command. His plasma pistol was scarred and pitted from close calls with biovore fire, and his powersword had a new scar where it had clashed with a warrior's bonesword. His hand had needed to replaced with a bionic, _again,_ and his old scars were aching worse than ever before. In his personal opinion, the one crossing his newly regrown eye was rather fetching. Most of his organs had likewise been replaced, but the biggest casualty had been his uniform.

What remained of the traditional Tallarn general's robe was in tatters, though what little in the field repairs he had given it made it stay mostly together, with only a few dozen holes. He had needed an entirely new set of carapace armor, which was ill-fitted due to the rushed nature of getting a uniform in time for a consecutive battle and sudden need for everyone else to get replacement gear as well. This was made glaringly obvious when he entered the _Righteous Judgement's_ bridge. Maybe one in four of the crewmen had a full uniform, and the room still bore the scars of what he had been told was an uncomfortably close boarding action. The admiral's prized chair, once covered in furs from the man's homeworld, had been shorn neatly in two, and the aforementioned animal parts seemed to have burned by something. Did the Tyranids have flamers now? Now that was a wonderful mental image. Al'rahem shuddered and strode over to where the chair's owner sat amongst a tangle of assorted wires and pipes, shaped into a rough approximation of the man's former throne.

The admiral was old, and it showed. His neck length hair and neatly trimmed beard were snow white but had yet to begin to recede. His face had more lines than he probably cared to count, and he could almost hear the man's bones creak as he shifted to get a better look at the holographic display table in front of him. His uniform mimicked his flesh, and while impeccably kept and without a single wrinkle despite having been in combat not so long ago, was a pale faded blue, showing its age. In the fifty years he had known the man, he had not changed a bit. Al'rahem supposed that being naval brass gave the man access to the kind of rejuvenat treatments that would let such a thing be possible, but they hadn't managed to save his attitude from matching his appearance. Al'rahem had called admiral Kathis Steten many things, always trying to keep his repertoire of insults fresh so as to retain their effectiveness, but cranky old man had always been just too easy not to use.

The general approached the holographic display and bent forwards slightly to examine it once the dimly glowing object was within arm's reach. On it, the ragged remains of the fleet were displayed, arrayed against seven xenos vessels. They were mostly tiny things, relatively speaking of course, the largest being the size of a light cruiser and the smallest being out massed by the smallest of destroyers. The smaller craft had a rounded slabs of what seemed to be sheets of additional side armor to shield the ship's thinner midsection. The slabs were only on the top of the ship, leaving the bottom exposed, the vessels had several wings jutting out near the end, two stretching vertically to the left and right, one below the vessel and one more slanted and smaller wing splitting the vessels additional rear armor. The vessels also had a piece of superstructure extending forwards, forcing apart the slabs of armor in front of it. The general could not think what it might be. It almost resembled a bridge, but making one so suicidally exposed would be folly beyond any sane ship designer's ability to contemplate.

The larger vessel was a hollow flat circle, with an additional piece of spherical superstructure in the middle. It had the same blue and grey coloration as the smaller vessels, and on its side an emblem was emblazoned. The emblem seemed to be a hexagon within a hexagon, with lines connecting the inner hexagon's points to the outer hexagon's inner corners.

The end on the ship facing the imperial fleet had a substantial gap that allowed the spherical piece of the superstructure to be seen, and as he leaned in Al'rahem could make out rectangular holes on each of the ship's arms. Launch bays maybe? They weren't very big though, so he couldn't imagine it carried many fighters, though if he was seeing the shapes on the smaller craft correctly they may have strike craft hanging off them parasitically like heldrakes are often do.

Not that their own fleet was that big either, but at the very least at least it had a cruiser. Al'rahem frowned and examined the softly glowing green projection again. The _Righteous Judgement_ made up the core of the fleet with its flanking pairs of defiant and dauntless-class light cruisers, bringing the number of semi respectable capitol ships up to five. Kathis had repeatedly told him that light cruisers were not "true" capitol ships, but escorts. Al'rahem thought this to be typical naval frivolity, if something looked like a cruiser, acted like a cruiser, and was called a cruiser, he was going to call it a cruiser as well. In a dispersed formation around the higher tonnage core of the fleet were their "true" escorts, two full squadrons of cobra-class destroyers, twelve vessels in total, and two squadrons of frigates, each containing three vessels. One of the squadrons consisted of sword-class vessels, and one of firestorm class vessels. In all honesty, it was more than he had expected to see given the condition the vessels had been in when they entered the warp, but less than there should be.

"Ancient Kathis, something seems to be amiss with your fleet" he drawled, hoping to hide his concern. "It's Admiral Steten to you, brat" the older man huffed, freshly offended as if they had not had this exchange every single time they arrived in a new warzone "and I can see that".

There was a disquieting silence that stretched between the two, with the general gazing pointedly at the admiral, and the admiral pointedly ignoring him. The silence stretched on for several minutes, before at last Al'rahem decided it might be best to get his questions answered before they entered the firing range of the enemy fleet.

It had been a longer than normal stay with the medicae, which may have been due to the difficulties of chasing a piece of crippled tyranid ammunition around his small intestine, but it had meant he had missed the transition back to realspace. The general had no idea how close the two fleets were and had made all haste to the bridge upon release. If asked, he would say that it was so he had the best idea of the enemies capabilities, but in truth he just wasn't sure of the integrity of the vessels walls and had decided to enter what he had figured to be the most airtight region of the ship. None of the vessels were in good condition, and even the smallest escorts bore signs of pyro-acid scaring, but the _Righteous Judgement _had been pierced through by the claw of a battlecruiser grade tyranid void-form, and he was thus slightly concerned at its ability to hold up in the face of renewed attack. The Dominator-class cruiser hadn't been the xenos vessels only victim though, and of the ships the survived, the fleets sole remaining Turbulent-class heavy frigate had possessed a similar hole. Coincidentally, it had also been the only ship not visible on the display.

"Well?" Al'rahem prompted. "Well what?" The admiral spat back. "_Where_ is the _Lance of Orpheus_?" Al'rahem was scowling now. The older man wasn't usually this obtuse. Something must have happened to it.

"Gone". Well didn't that just explain everything. "Gone **where?**" Al'rahem had always been fond of the Navy-guard banter, but this was getting ridiculous. How difficult was it to get an answer out of the other branches of the imperium? The inquisitorial staff from the ordo xenos he had worked with had been even more evasive when questioned about things He Really Ought To Know if he was going to throw his regiments at the Tyranids back on Nihilas, and the Astartes hadn't even acknowledged his presence. No sister he had ever met had given him a reply to any particular question without somehow mentioning heresy, and he still had not managed to find a tech priest that spoke gothic instead of that strange language of theirs, though maybe they did and were messing with him. His experience with the other branches would lead him to not discount that option.

The Admiral finally looked back to the display and gestured to the systems star. "That's where they are at the moment" Al'rahem hoped he had misinterpreted that one. "….In orbit?" he asked hesitantly. "No" Came the flat reply.

The general winced, the admiral's mood making sense now. That was not one of the ships the fleet could afford to lose. If it had been a cobra, that would have been one thing, they were replaceable, but a heavy frigate was almost as good as a light cruiser. Worse still, the damaged super heavy tanks had been stored on it. Colonel Patton would be furious.

"Well, at least we seem to have a substantially bigger and better fleet than the xenos for once. This should be easy enough, assuming you don't manage to fail as disastrously as usual" Al'rahem stated, with a much more jovial tone. Hopefully that jab would get the old man back to normal. Morale was low enough as it was, if the command staff was seen to be in low spirits that would just make it worse.

The admiral responded with a derisive snort and sent him a half amused, half scathing look. "That's what you said at Testris V", which was a decent enough comeback, for an admiral who looked like he might turn to dust the second he turned his back on the man that was. "Well, to be fair, those were necrons. Necrons don't really play fair" which was a totally valid response, as the skeletal xenos did in fact cheat outrageously.

The admiral shifted in his makeshift seat, no longer sulking. "At least I didn't lose us an entire titan legion" the older man replied, a hint malicious grin on his lips. Al'rahem scowled back, but was unable to respond. How exactly was he supposed to explain to high command that an entire legion of god machines had been eaten by fist sized bugs? Bugs! Now, to be fair, they were necron bugs, but the scions of mars hadn't seen it that way. It had been over a decade and he _still_ wasn't able to get the forgeworld to lend him another legio when he needed one. Or a reasonable amount of lasgun powerpacks and other such essentials for that matter.

"We are still about ten minutes out if we remain at our current speed, but if I order the fleet to go at full burn we could cut that down to three."

Al'rahem shifted and looked quizzically at Staten before perking up. "You haven't decided whether to use the nova cannon yet, have you?" He asked, having realized the admiral's reason for the slow approach. "Aye" Staten replied "We only have three rounds left, and I would prefer to save those for a truly dangerous opponent. The only reason I am considering it is because I just noticed this" he points to small dots exiting the largest ship and entering the planets atmosphere. "We were told this was a republic world, so why would they be landing troops? Also, over here" he points to some smaller specs floating around the enemy light cruiser "we have what looks like the wreckage of some republic ships"

Al'rahem frowned at that. He had assumed that the ships in front of his were the xenos empires defense fleet, small for a homeworld but that was to be expected, as what faction could ever match the might of the imperium? The ships weren't quite as had been described to him in the extremely short briefing he had received en route but given that they had only recently discovered these new enemies that wasn't unexpected, even on races they had known since the emperor walked amongst them like the Orks and Aeldari there was still misinformation and mistakes. But if there was wreckage of the presumed defense fleet lying around and dissimilar ships in orbit landing troops, that meant…

Al'rahem groaned loudly, then again for emphasis. "We just blundered onto a planetary invasion of our target, didn't we?" Admiral Kathis nodded, his face tense. "You see my dilemma then" he started. "Every second that ship remains in orbit means that more troops will be on the ground, and worse still there is the response incoming. We don't know much about this fleet either, or its troops, so our fleet might be comprised of vessels that are at a disadvantage, and it may be the same on the ground."

The response fleet was what concerned Al'rahem the most. If this world had been invaded, there were few factions that would let that stand. Generally, a response fleet had to be at least twice the size of the invasion fleet to be safe, but on occasion whatever was in the area would be thrown at the invaders if the world, or something on it, was particularly vital and they needed to be stalled. If it were the more likely former case though, they were looking at a republic response fleet of fourteen vessels at best, to their twenty-three.

This would be a decent fight, if not for the fact the fleet's vessels were all in terrible shape and would have to go through the invasion fleet first. That was of course assuming that there were no republic forces left in system to report their presence, leading to the use of an even bigger fleet. "So, we are on a time limit then" the general murmured. They would have to get the fleet into orbit, eliminate the twileks, eliminate the new xenos faction as they got in the way in all likelihood, pack up, and leave before the response fleet got here if they were to get the regiments out safely. Worse, with an invasion in progress, the twileks were likely to have gone to ground to save themselves. This would make finding them much harder. If they were still in their cities, a scan could check this, and orbital bombardment could be safely used to burn them to ash from orbit without worrying that they might miss a few. With an invasion in progress, they were likely to have hidden in bunkers, tunnel systems, and other such sheltered areas, and some might survive.

If this were some minor species, that might be acceptable, as It would take millennia to recreate the infrastructure needed for starship production even assuming they kept the knowledge, and the planet would be rendered dead, meaning in all likelihood they would starve to extinction. But this species had allies, which if they could not terraform the world, could just evacuate the survivors. Failure was normally unacceptable, but this was a mission approved by both the ecclesiarchy and the inquisition, and had also passed the desk of a primarch. This was one of the holiest missions either man had ever even considered attempting, and they could not afford to fail. They would have to land troops and examine the planet for such hideouts in order to ensure it was done in the emperor's name.

Admiral Steten sighed, and then abruptly stood. "Damn it all, we don't have time for a protracted battle. We'll use the plasma shell and save the graviton ones incase something big is in the response fleet."

The admiral then moved to his ruined chair and braced himself against it. All the other crew members were in similarly ramshackle battle stations, and Al'rahem himself had nothing but the display table to brace himself against. The admiral turned to his chief vox officer and started barking orders "Contact the prow gunnery chief and tell him to fire his last plasma round dead ahead once its loaded. After you do, contact my vice admiral and tell him to move his frigate and destroyer squadrons forwards and launch a volley of torpedoes at the enemy escorts when I fire my nova cannon. And you, yes you newblood" he said, pointing at a fresh face in the vox section of the bridge, who Al'rahem assumed was a replacement for some poor crew member lost to the tyranids "Send out a message to all ships, all light cruisers are to form up on me in a spearhead formation. All other escorts are to form a vanguard under the vice admiral".

The officers transmitted their messages to the intended recipients while the admiral turned to Al'rahem. "I do believe you have some lads to attend to. Get them ready, I have no intention of letting the xenos get a foothold. They are dropping as soon as we can achieve low orbit safely." Already expecting this, the orders came as Al'rahem was crossing the bridges sole intact doorway. He had his job to do, and Kathis Steten had his as well.

Kathis Steten was not a particularly friendly man. He was not prone to acts of frivolity, merriment, or general good will. As such, he supposed the wide grin he was wearing might be the source of the bridge crew's increasing concern.

It had been a long decade. Ever since the fall of Cadia, warp travel had become less and less reliable. Indeed, that was the reason his ship had entered the warp in 999.M41 and exited it in 234.M42. Since then, he and his fleet had been on a streak of pyrrhic victories and losses. If it wasn't a chaos fleet the size of battlefleet ultima, it was the Tyranids. If it wasn't the Tyranids, it was an ork Waaaagh that had somehow managed to steal an honest to emperor _battleship_. If it wasn't the orks, it was those infuriating nigh invincible openly cheating NECRONS. The _Lance of Orpheus_ had been the last surviving member of his original battlefleet, save his own ship of course, most of the replacing having taken place after battles with those accursed metal abominations, but having been consistent in even battles without them. Constant casualties, impossible odds, and pyrrhic victories had seemed to be the new way of life for those in the post Cadian era, so he thanked the god emperor for letting him avoid continuing that trend just this once. He had no personal grudge against these xenos, but he would be taking out a decade of frustrations on them regardless. Who knew when a battle this easy might happen again?

He gripped his command-throne tighter as the signature dimming of all light sources began, a sign the immense gravatic impellers of the nova cannon had begun devouring the generators output. A split second later, there was a lurch as the gun fired, causing Kathis to frown. The inertial compensators seemed to be out. Good to know if they needed to fire it again. On the holographic display in front of him, Kathis saw the circular light cruiser disappear in a flash of light, as well as some of the dots leaving it. Hopefully, the enemy hadn't got to far into its deployment.

As the ship vanished, a swarm of dots exited the front of the imperial battleline, the torpedoes now locked on course towards the surviving presumed escort vessels. The narrower xenos ships quickly turned to the side and tried to move away from the ordinance spread headed towards them, likely also hoping to move out of range of his nova cannon. Good, Kathis though, this had been what he had been hoping for. As the xenos vessels broke into two groups of three, his vice admiral's escorts chased down the group on his port side and immediately began bombarding them. The firestorm squadron's lances quickly dropped the xenos vessel's shields as they closed in and the weapons batteries of the rest began quickly taking the ships apart.

The vessel that had been closest to the light cruiser fell first, it's superstructure quickly shattering under the deluge of macrocannon shells his vanguard was throwing out. The still turning vessel snapped in half, its forward section slowly tumbling towards its sister ships as a blazing wreck while its stern began its descent into the atmosphere, venting all the while. The second and third vessels managed to complete their turns as they came under fire and began retaliating. A rain of crimson bolts crossed the hundreds of thousands of kilometers separating the vessels, only to uselessly vent their spite on the forwards void shields of the firestorms, too few to have a real effect. The torpedo crews appeared to have finished reloading a full minute faster than usual, as a spread of tiny cylinders appeared on Steten's holosphere, and the two vessels were forced to split again. This time however, the spread struck true, crippling the second vessel with multiple successive hits. First the forward section disintegrated, erased from existence by half a dozen building sized warheads. Next, as the vessel began to flip, its forward sections being forced downwards by the power behind the successive blows, the remaining torpedoes struck true against the vessel's central superstructure, almost in the dead center of the area where the escorts horizontal wings met. The stricken vessel simply could not take the successive hits, and on the eighth impact the escorts back was broken as the vessels came fully apart, leaving its burning hulk in several dozen grey-blue pieces. The third vessel avoided the worst of the spread, but received a pair of crippling blows to the stern, heavily damaging its engines. Kathis' grin widened. It couldn't run now.

As the other three vessels had realized what happened, they had quickly began turning in what seemed to be an attempt to save their last comrade. A swarm of fighters streamed across the battlefield to aid the third vessel, but his pair of defiants had sent their fighter wings to intercept them. Isolated, cut off and without support, the third xenos vessel quickly succumbed to his vanguard force, its shattered hulk spinning out of the planet's gravity well and into the depths of space.

Yet, even outnumbered as they were, the other escorts had yet to flee. Did they lack FTL, like the tyranids, and relied instead upon a support vessel to provide it? Was that what the larger ship had been? They were not heading to the systems edge either though, as vessels in that situation might in order to survive until reinforcements came, so either they decided to try and take some vessels down with them, or something was important enough on the planet that they couldn't leave. But this was an invasion fleet, so it wasn't something they needed to defend, and they couldn't stop them from destroying it anyways. There was no way they could extract any heavy equipment in time, and the invasion had just begun so whatever they sought on this world was likely unobtained, so that just left a VIP of some sort.

That made orbital bombardment an even more limited proposition. He was already hesitant to order it due to the possibility it could disguise any cloaked or otherwise hidden bunkers, but this made it even more unfavorable. The ships were unfamiliar to the admiral, but the briefing had mentioned that the republic was at war with some other xenos faction of indeterminate size. Neither the republic or the other faction had much information gathered on them yet, and their size, strength, composition, territory, and fleets were all unknown to high command. That made gathering as much information as possible vital in the upcoming months. How convenient such a source had been placed in front of him, Truly, the emperor provided for the faithful. Of course, he didn't know what the VIP looked like, or for sure it existed, but those were Al'rahem's problems.

As the fleet swept in closer to the planet Steten left his command throne and approached the vox officer's section of the bridge. Keeping an eye on the holosphere, he turned to the officer and spoke. "Tell the vanguard to try to keep the enemy ships as intact as possible. As soon as they are disable, I want boarding parties to clear them. Once that is finished, contact the magos and tell him to see what he can discern from a tour of the vessel's, and if found their cogitators."

The officer nodded and began transmitting the revised orders, but it was far to late for the fourth vessel to be saved, as a torpedo barrage had already turned it into a thousand glowing pieces. The Fifth vessel was in bad shape, but salvageable. Its superstructure was smashed and burning, but the vessel was still capable of firing several of its weapons emplacements. Pinpoint lance fire quickly silenced the few guns it had left though, and immediately after he saw the unmistakable outline of shark assault boats leaving the flight decks of his twin defiant-class light cruisers. A flash quickly dragged his eyes away from the light cruisers, only to discover the sixth and final vessel was missing. There was a new expanding cloud of debris where it had last been though. Kathis cursed. It had been in good shape last he had seen it. One of his escorts must have landed a lucky hit on the warp core or some equivalent. Well, one was better than none, no matter how bad the vessel's condition was. As he headed back to his command throne, he gave the order to begin preparations for landing. The rest, it seemed, was up to the general.

As he gazed on the holographic display his devourer dropship provided, General Al'rahem could not help but feel distinctly underwhelmed. "This is it, you are _certain_" he asked, gazing pointedly at the enginseer across the display table from him. "Indeed general" the half mechanical creature replied, its voice and odd echoing hiss "scans have shown no anti-orbital or anti air guns. Furthermore, no aircraft remain of xenos origin. The magos believes that the xenos use their strikcraft for both void and terrestrial operations, and thus lost all airpower in the void battle. Additionally, a massive cave system has been discovered by our auger arrays, lending credence to the admiral's fears of populations that may survive bombardment. Furthermore, most life signs our augurs have detected are in this cave system" The general sighed. They had not found any signs of bunkers yet, but that was what his sentinels would be doing for the next few days. Whether they found them or not, it seemed they would be doing at least part of this the hard way.

"Do you have any news that would make my job easier then, martian?" he asked, not expecting a helpful answer. "Indeed" the enginseer affirmed "All xenos war constructs have been observed withdrawing to a single location. In addition, this location houses a single xenos lifesign in the center of all the warforms, while all other xenos life signs are segregated away from the constructs. This is likely your secondary target."

Well, that was something. It had surprised him to learn that the xenos relied so heavily on war constructs. They seemed to be skeletal in appearence, with compact rifles and very little else. The augur scans could not pick up much detail on the constructs, but they reminded him uncomfortably of the necrons, though they were smaller and less armored by far. The enemy had deployed some tanks as well it seemed, though the mechanicus detachment did not as of yet have an accurate count. The xenos tanks were bigger than the infantry constructs, and thus somewhat clearer on the augur arrays.

The tanks had a large, central elevated turret and two sponsons just below said turret. The vehicle seemed rather under armed for one its size, but additionally lacked the tracks of an imperial tank, making it a hover vehicle. Perhaps, like other races with that technology in widespread use, they had fewer, more powerful guns rather than more, less powerful weapons as a part of their armor design? Either way, even without a count he could tell from a quick scan of the holographic display in front of him there were far more of them than there should be.

They had either been on world longer than either he or the admiral had anticipated, or those dropships could contain many more constructs than they appeared to as the number of skeletal war forms upon the surface was estimated to number at least 400,000. "How many of them have reached the city?" the general asked. The enginseer paused, seeming to consult some invisible figure, and then refocused on Al'rahem's face. "An estimated 250,000 xenos warforms have entered the city as of the last augur scan general, as well as many of their vehicles. There is an additional issue in sieging the city that must be considered. The xenos settlement is located on an isolated piece of land, surrounded on all sides by ravines. We cannot reach it without building a bridge."

Oh, of course. It was never that easy. "How are the xenos crossing?" Al'rahem asked. "They seem to have a narrow form of energy bridge. It has been activated and deactivated several times as we began preparing for landing" the enginseer replied. Al'rahem cursed. Who knows what xenos techno sorcery kept that bridge active. They were likely to damage it or destrory it completely in the siege and relying on xenos tech was something he wasn't comfortable with anyways, which left only a single option.

"Build your bridge martian. Vox officer! Tell the other regiments to deploy across the ravine from the city, on the side the xenos energy bridge is on. We may be able to cut off any escape or reinforcement attempts that way. They are to begin shelling as soon as they can and to guard the tech priests in their efforts to create a crossing. Impress upon them it is vital to avoid shelling the area with the isolated xenos lifesign in it! When you have finished, radio our air support and tell them to bomb al the settlements aside from this one. After that, find our sky talon pilots and get them ready to drop their Valkyries into the areas our bombers are targeting"

Al'rahem looked at the holosphere, and then looked at the enginseer "I want our companies evenly divided between these major entrances" Al'rahem said, jabbing at them for emphasis. "Get the coordinates and then send them to our company commanders in order. Tell the pilot to bring us to the closest one when you are finished."

The enginseer affirmed, and then departed, heading in the direction of the cockpit. Al'rahem sighed again. This was already shaping up to be a wonderfully complicated campaign. Hopefully they could get this over with in a short amount of time. Relatively speaking of course. He looked back at the holographic display mournfully one last time before heading down to the troop staging area in the lower decks to seek out his command chimaera. Was it too much to ask for the enemy to just helpfully line themselves up on open ground this once?

**Ending AN: So that's the start of it. As you may have noticed, Al'rahem and pals make some mistakes and assumptions. They take actions based on experience and don't realize that they made a mistake yet due to the lack of information they have on the opponents. Let's see if you can guess what all of them are. Some of them are pretty obvious, some are not. Likewise, we don't get a CIS perspective in this chapter, but they and their plans are suffering from the same thing. See if you can figure out what those mistakes are.**


	3. Arc One: Ryloth-Invasion

**AN: Sorry for the delays. A lot happened over the last couple months, including a couple emergencies. Worst yet the second part of Al'rahem's entry just doesn't feel natural to me no matter what I do, so I go stuck on that and rewrote it so many times it took another full two weeks to finally give up on it and deposit the mess you see before you. Still not happy with it, or cutting the last bit of the chapter, but this felt like a better place to end and I really needed to get this out due to how very overdue it is. Again, sorry about that. I'll try my best to get the next section out much faster, but this should have warned you about how much of a failure I am when it comes to due dates.**

**Onto Reviews: Anons: on the nids, those weren't republic worlds they found, on cyclonics, no, they used them on the nid fleet when things got desperate, it didn't help as much as they needed it too.**

**March2Dis: We will be visiting mandalore a couple times for reasons that will be clear once the first visit is complete. It will not be anything resembling a minor battle.**

**Ryloth, 20km South of Lessu-5 Days post merge**

This city, Anastacia thought, had to be one of the worst designed cities she had ever sieged. It was a large, open target with no void shielding, and built into a mountain in a way that would let even a tank regiment easily bombard it. There seemed to be no artillery built into the mountain side, or at least none the xenos could use judging by the lack of any attempt to disrupt their setting up, and the walls didn't seem particularly well armed either. Not an autocannon emplacement or heavy weapons team in sight.

Of course, this was her first time actually commanding a siege, so perhaps there was just something she was missing. It was a distinctly underwhelming experience, truth be told. Part of that was simply the lack of proper equipment. Much of the gear her former superiors had used for their headquarters, from advanced vox systems to airdropped bunkers had been lost to that disastrous tunneling assault back in nihilas. The best the lads could set up for her was a simple dugout with what they could salvage from the acid burned ruins of the bunkers that were still (mostly) intact, topped off with the largest camoline tarp they could find.

There were some pieces of aegis defense line left over, so they had that for the perimeter. Anastacia could spy her old squad from the eighth battery hauling some of the pieces into position as she stood upon an upended ammo crate to peer out the sizable frontal hole the dugout's camoline didn't cover. It was six feet up, so it wasn't that she was short, it was just that…the hole was unreasonably high! Yes, that was what she was sticking with. It was mostly Icarus lascannon mounts, disappointingly. She would be a lot more comfortable with some autocannons, but that's the guard for you, never expect the convenient to occur.

She would prefer to have some real bunkers built, but the general said this campaign would be on a time limit. Now, she was new to this whole "colonel" thing, but she was pretty sure quick strikes weren't exactly the kind of thing their battlegroup specialized in. She was certainly young for the role, but not young enough to not know that even the best artillery regiments weren't the most mobile. Anastacia stretched upwards as far as she could, doing her best not to catch her new white colonel's heavy coat on the box as she observed the city being sieged again with her magnoculars. Well, the city was fairly unsheltered, so maybe they could pull it off.

Then again, that is what she had thought on Nihilas. The Valhallan 97th was a new regiment, meant to operate in tandem with the 33rd infantry and 82nd armored regiment it had been raised alongside. They had been organized to manage the constant rebellions springing up since the great rift had filled the skies and had for the most part had an easy time of it. On the imperial worlds they had to quell rebellions on, most of her work had been walking around intimidating the populace as the inquisitorial and arbites elements attached cleaned up anyone related to the incident. On imperial worlds they needed to retake, the aeronautica elements cleaned up anyone outside bunkers and they sat back and pounded the void shields down, the cleanup being left to the 33rd and 82nd. They had suffered next to no casualties, except for the occasional ammunition mishap or poor fool who ran afoul of the commissar of course, but besides that it had been smooth sailing for the most part.

Then came Nihilas. The atmosphere had been radically different from the start, where even before they landed she could see the fear in the eyes of every voidsman she had passed. They had been shepherded from the dropships by fearful pdf troopers and shown their places in the defensive line by ever silent astartes, only ever speaking to give orders. Their welcome had been by weary adeptus sororitus that had been running delaying actions against the splinter fleet for some time in neighboring systems, some missing limbs, many missing eyes, all heavily scarred and had said little. They had this air of almost pity about them, knowing, in hindsight, how little they were prepared for what was to come.

Leading them had been a grim-faced inquisitor of the ordo xenos, his visage darkening by the day as the enemy began their approach. The other regiments were no newcomers and had known what to expect. On one side they were flanked by the dour men of kreig, who would at best when goaded to conversion simply mention the best way their cult of sacrifice recommended dying in this coming conflict. On the other was her now general's regiment, which tried their best to advise the newbloods on how to survive the coming incursion.

They hadn't listened. So fresh from a streak of victories, having never heard much of xenos besides the orks that had threatened their homeworld, they simply did not believe the fatalistic words of their new comrades, that so many of their own were destined to die. These were but xenos before the might of the emperor after all! Surely, none could truly stand before not just his hammer, but his angels as well? There had even been talk amongst the 33rd of how the counterattacks would go, and bets on who would earn the most kills.

Now the 33rd was gone, and the 87th with it. The war had gone.._flashing teeth and claws, the corpses of her friends rising again as things moved beneath their eyes and flesh, hearing screaming as her boots and feet were reduced to bone by the acid flooding the streets and realizing that it was her own_…poorly. In those hellish weeks she had at last understood the truth of the emperor's words, why she was here on this small rock before any of them had really been able to recover. She had seen the weakness of men, and the cruelty of those the things on the other side had tempted, but it wasn't anything like she had seen during that month.

Those people were still humans, still acting like a person would. Xenos weren't, xenos didn't act like a human unless they were trying to trick you by _wearing the shape of a friend, their claws slowly unsheathing as your squad mate tearfully reached out to embrace the one you thought lost and it_-she shuddered. Rebels, cultists, and sinners were bad. They made life harder for everyone, they were greedy, they hurt and they stole but they could still be redeemed by the flame. Xenos couldn't. Xenos were all that and so much more and when Anastacia had looked the creature using her friend's face in the eyes and saw the terrible thing lay behind it and every other beast on the battlefield she had truly understood what the preachers meant when they used the word evil. She had understood why she and the others had to leave home, never to return and she understood why the regiment had to keep fighting even as their minds were in tatters. She understood why she couldn't afford to let a single one escape alive, so that someone else didn't have to see what she had seen and so one day no one would have to.

It just wasn't the same anymore. They all still smiled, as Valhallan's always had in the face of horrific casualties, but the smiles were obviously forced, and each night troopers were woken by the screams of their comrades as night terrors dragged them all back to that organic hell where spires of bone and chitin pierced the sky and the atmosphere was as alive and malicious as the hellbeasts that produced it. More depressing were the smaller details, like noticing how twitchy everyone had gotten, how they didn't trust the ground they trod upon and refused to leave their back turned to any vent or corner. How they would periodically freeze up and throw their gaze around, only to notice that it was just some vehicle or piece of gear that had made the ground quake. How she would notice herself do these things too. How she would notice every night how empty the barracks seemed to be.

She didn't know how to cope with it at first, but the solution had become obvious after observing the rest of the regiment. All she had to do was keep smiling and stay positive. As long as those two thoughts filled her head, as long as she didn't think about anything else, then she wouldn't have any problems. She would be fine, she wouldn't be forced to stay awake at night waiting for those shadows to _erupt into a massive maw the size of her house, crawling across the floor in and through the pulped organs of the other Lieutenants as the creature came down and the colonel screamed as it_-Anastacia twitched, her mind forcefully dragging itself back to the thoughts of smiles and happy days purging heretics and rebels with her friends _who were_-she twitched again. All she had to do was repress it and the problem would go away and she could go back to being happy. It was so simple.

The sooner this mess was over, and she was away from the loose, fertile soil that was _so easy to burrow through that the creatures_-did nothing because they were not here and was back in orbit in her safe, metal officer's dorm with all the vents welded shut the better. Maybe once they were done here she could ask the general how he cheered his men up, she could use the advice. The length of the campaign might make the morale more tenuous if it ended up stretching on as the men really needed some rest, but as long as they thought like she did it should be fine.

Still, a better idea of how long this mess would take might help. She turned back to her rather plain servo skull and followed its gaze to where its pic-recorder was displaying the navy's fly over images for her vox officer. He seemed to be relaying them to colonel Patton through his master vox and judging from the bluster audible even halfway across the room, he was rather dismayed with the enemy's lack of sensible defenses. She decided at long last that, no matter how long she might live, she would never understand tank commanders.

She strode over to the vox officer, doing her best Very Important Person impression, her face the very visage of strict and counterproductive discipline. Now that she thought about it, she was probably the closest thing the regiment had to a commissar at this point. She had no idea how they kept this up all day, she was a mess of nerves and she hadn't even spoken yet, and her face hurt as she tried to keep it in place. Well, she had a bolt pistol now, so maybe they just intimidated people hard enough that they didn't notice any missteps. But how did that work in the tank legion?

Reaching the vox officer, she tapped him on the shoulder, distracting him from the other colonel's rant about the inadequacies of the xenos. Outwardly, she was the perfect example of expressionless authority, but inwardly she was cursing up a storm. She should have just expressionlessly stood behind the man, waiting expressionlessly until the horrified looks of his coworkers alerted him to her presence. Then a look of horror would dawn on his own face, and the man would be reduced to a stammering wreck, apologizing profusely for not noticing her and the wait. Her former captain loved doing that, and it had always worked on her.

The man looked at her, hope shining in his eyes for an excuse to change channels. Well, an act of mercy could go a long way with the troops, so she might as well oblige him. "Officer, what is the regiments state of readiness? Are we prepared for the bombardment?" she asked. The man muttered some apologies into the vox, quickly reaching for the controls and cutting off the loud angry replies as he looked over her shoulder at some other member of the command staff. Seeming to receive whatever silent answer he was searching for, he nodded at his compatriot and refocused on her face. "Yes colonel, the logistics officers just finished handing out the camo netting, so we should be mostly safe from counter battery fire. Luckily, this planet is close enough to our last deployment we don't need to repaint the guns anyways. The ammo depos are in place to, so we can begin when you think we are ready. Er, ma'am."

She hummed noncommittally, trying to covertly find a reflective surface to show the officer she probably should have talked to instead. It looked like he was starting to notice though, which would hurt her image. Better distract him.

"Do the logisticians have an estimate of how long it will take us to saturate the full bombardment area with enough fire to exterminate the constructs?" He tried to look over her shoulder again, but she swayed slightly to block his line of view, hopefully in a way that seemed natural. Let's see how he liked not knowing things.

The vox officer quickly appeared to get frustrated, but then had a flash of triumph cross his face. His compatriot must have signaled him somehow. "A day just about ma'am. We should be done by roughly noon tomorrow, and the bridge should be finished just before nightfall."

Anastacia nodded, and walked over to the former colonels mostly repaired command chair, which was in her opinion the real triumph of the post nihilas salvage mission. She sat down in it, crossing one leg over the other and hiding her face behind steepled fingers. On one armrest lay her new bolt pistol, partly to look intimidating and partly because it was heavy. Her chainsword lay against the other side, for quick access. She gazed at the vox officer, and at last informed him "You may tell the batteries to begin preliminary bombardment".

The man gave her a strange look, likely surprised by her flawless transition to the command position, before nodding and began relaying her orders to the battery commanders. After all, with five whole campaigns under her belt as a lieutenant for a basilisk battery, surely her idea of what command was like couldn't be wrong, right? She dismissed the thought as the first artillery pieces opened up on the apparently defenseless xenos city. Well, if she was doing something wrong someone would have told her already. Settling back a bit in her chair, she observed her servo skull as it displayed real time images of the initial bombardment. Hopefully, this would be an easy enough siege to start off her career in her newly earned command position. With reinforcements likely weeks away, and the city and planet at that completely defenseless before the guard's onslaught, what could possibly go wrong?

**Ryloth, Subterranean Caves-6 Days post merge**

General Al'rahem had seen many types of xenos civilizations over his many, many years and on average he found those that lived underground were particularly loathsome. Often some strange breed on insect or invertebrate, sometimes with parasitism mixed in, their nature made orbital bombardment a difficult prospect as with how deep some tunnels could go you could never be sure you got all of them and the bombardment could collapse parts of their tunnel networks, obscuring lower layers where the species would lurk and bide its time.

That of course did not even include the nature of caves even without their heretical inhabitants. They were dark places filled with secret passageways, narrow corridors, and sheer cliffs that required dedicated climbing equipment to handle. Any hope of using armored or heavy support elements in such a campaign was always quickly discouraged once the analysis of their operational zone was completed, leading to the regiment having to slog through hundreds of kilometers in the dark in a stressful and tedious quest to root their quarries out of whatever cranny they were hiding in.

This campaign didn't seem to be as terrible as most though. The native xenos beasts weren't much compared to grox or ambull, even in the darker parts of the planet. The xenos he was here to hunt seemed to lack any innate tunneling ability, which made their choice of living conditions puzzling, but somewhat convenient as they had nowhere to run. Most caves were small too, so most of the early landings had their companies finished purging by midday and redirected to provide infantry support for the other regiments in their siege. Of the majority of the regiment though, the roughly 40,000 members that made up the three prongs assigned to attack their main population center as far as their sensors could tell, all were still stuck in the same cave system. It turns out that the major caves all connected once you got far enough down which, in retrospect, is likely why these twilek chose them. As the forward elements of his company careful advanced, scanning every inch of ground with temperamental mechanicus devices in search of mines, gas, or biological hazards, he felt despite the convenience of a connected cave system they still ought to have trapped it better. There was almost nothing here.

His unease was not helped by how smoothly the landings had gone. Even with the occupying airforce destroyed and the planet already besieged by another, this was supposed to be a homeworld of a xenos race. No matter how vile or strange, there was no species in the galaxy that did not place great value on such places. Even utterly irrelevant species like the Cimmeriac had garrisons of dozens of battle stations and about fifty of their Shadowcruisers guarding their point of origin, even after the thrashing Vortigern's battered fleet had inflicted on the rest of their navy. The republic, by all current estimates, was much larger than those long dead xenos, and had at least 60 worlds under their sway, rivaling other minor powers like the T'au empire. Yet the remains of the fleet visible in orbit could barely be considered a patrol fleet, and there wasn't a battle station in sight.

This was supposed to be Ryloth, homeworld of a major species within this confederation of man and beast, and yet it seemed more and more like an outpost on some forgotten feral world than a place of any importance in the Republic as he continued to receive intelligence on it. He had thought, if not a fleet, then perhaps a shield and powerful defensive batteries? But no, there seemed to have been little if any losses to the construct using xenos fleet, and the wreckage suggested either the fleet had no been here long enough to break a shield, or the shield was a very bad one. Perhaps then, the xenos were experts at guerrilla warfare, and like the Kroot when confronted with a superior force melted into the environment and simply avoided direct confrontation? This too was proven false when none of the survivors appeared to harass his invaders, instead choosing to huddle in their caverns, guarded by white clad soldiers of a different species. Something was off here, but he wasn't sure what yet.

Until he figured out what was going on, caution was the way to go. His troops had all been deployed and entered the cave at this point, and they had made decent headway into clearing them. The worrying lack of resistance meant that they could move as fast as they could scan the place, and with the amount of men deployed that was fast indeed. Not as fast as if they could bring their armor with them, but that level of inconvenience was much better than they usually experienced.

Still, he would much prefer to command things from a Salamander, the tunnel network was dense enough and deep enough that it could easily cause vox problems. Which was of course why he was wearing a heavy helmet under his Tallarn headdress. The last of his men to be deployed formed up around him as the rumble of engines faded into the distance, the Chimera transports that had bought them here returning to their dropships to gather additional supplies. He would need to go to the front personally to ensure the lines of communication and command stayed strong, and while he would be lacking a great deal of tactical information that a Salamander would have gave him access to, it was better to be in contact with the troops than to have that information and not be able to use it.

As the majority of his command squad formed up behind him, he gave his standard bearer a nod and began his decent into the cave system, illuminated only by lighting systems attacked to his helmet and the lasguns of his escort. The standard bearer barked an order and he could hear the thud of countless boots following in his footsteps. Their march was slow, the mass of infantry forced into a thin column due to the narrow walls of the tunnel, and it took some jostling to get the sensor bearing troopers to the front of the line. They began to examine the ground and air as they walked, as despite the fact many had already come this way it was always possible enemy infiltrators could bypass them to planet new traps in the hopes of taking out command units. That was yet another thing the dark winding corridors of caves made more possible and, Al'rahem decided as he scanned the darkness ahead, inbuilt preysight active, yet another reason he **really did not like caves.**

oOo

Down and down Al'rahem went, the darkness of the cave broken by the occasional colony of bioluminescent fungi and even more occasionally by intermittent flashes of weapons fire. The shape of the tunnels made it obvious that the caves were artificial but were roughly hewn enough that they appeared natural. The chronometer had long since passed midnight and they had advanced countless kilometers since then, cleared many caves and slain many foes, but had yet to see a single member of the target species. They hadn't seen any true fortifications, traps, biological weapons, or large groups of enemies either for that matter, so the casualties were pleasantly light for an underground campaign.

Still, the sheer size of the cave system was slowing them down more than they liked. As the converged on the central point it was estimated the remaining twileks were hiding in, more and more of his men were being diverted down side passages and holes of varying size to ensure that none had managed to find a hiding spot they might overlook. That had happened before, and the accursed fungus creatures he had been fighting at the time had recouped their losses within the decade due to their unusual reproductive methods. He had learned since then though and wouldn't be making the same mistake twice.

So far, they had managed to catch very few in those side passages, and neither had any of the other companies. This unfortunately meant the xenos had concentrated what remained of their forces in their stronghold, as opposed to letting them pick them off one by one. While this was an inconvenience, it also meant no ambushes, so he decided it was a good thing in the long run. Well, no ambushes except for the white armored troopers.

Al'rahem grimaced as he stepped over one of those white armored enemies, slain in their most recent skirmish. Squads of them had been harassing the advance with not much in the way opposition since dawn, not that he could tell at the time with so much rock between him and the surface. They were having trouble catching them due to the impossibility of moving at their usual speeds without their chimera, and the narrow confines of the tunnels made concentrating their numerical advantage nearly impossible. The nature of his foes didn't make things any easier either.

Al'rahem pressed himself against the wall of the cave, allowing a flurry of blue bolt stream past. The enemy had a distinctive t-shaped visor and white plate armor with a visible black under suit covering the places the plates did not. Their rifle had a decent rate of fire, and was compact, perhaps a carbine variant meant for close quarters fights like these? He stepped away from the wall as the firing died down, firing a volley of plasma shots at the retreating figures. Most missed, scorching the white armor of his adversaries in passing, but one hit a retreating figure mid-back, disintegrating the center of his torso. He fell with a strangled cry, carbine flying out of reach as he hit the ground. Their armor was fairly good at absorbing energy, and could take more than a few lasgun shots, but plasma was plasma. It always did the job.

One of the figures turned to help his fallen comrade only to take a dozen lasgun shots to the chest. As he fell back, his cratered plate still smoking, veteran squads escorting Al'rahem finally caught up. At their head was his displeased looking vox officer, giving him what the lad no doubt though was a stern glare. He got an unrepentant shrug in return. If he wanted to follow him around he should be able to keep up. These tunnels were never meant for countless men running around weighed down by so much gear, and many had thin enough floors that when combined with damage from lasguns and the occasional grenade this constant pressure would lead to a collapse, depositing a squad or two far away from any help and stopping any further use of the passage in question. These troops were thus very vulnerable to ambush and annihilation and required their comrades to immediately find and reinforce them or risk their annihilation. Which was of course the reason for his hurry.

The rest of his command squad would be more than capable of keeping up with him, but his psyker had exploded on Nihilas due to the shadow in the warp, and upon hearing _who _exactly had charged the regiment with this mission father Anders had been seized with religious furor and charged off with a platoon or two he had convinced to follow him. The man seemed fine judging by the continuous religious chanting he could still hear echoing about, interrupted occasionally by xenos screaming and familiar cackling. His Ogryn bodyguard had created one of the holes that had been separating his troops via his ripper, with the members of the squad heading down after him as the collapse grew to encompasses most of the passage they were in at the time. Except his medic of course, not even the ground opening below his feet could free him from that menace.

The medic laughed at the younger officer's expression, stepping away from the other side of the corridors as he did so. "Come now replacement, surely you don't think that these wretches could possibly be a threat to us? They don't seem to have a heavy weapon worth the name, and the good general is wearing carapace armor. Worst comes to worst I could fix him up, even if all that was left was his thick skull". It seemed he wasn't overly pleased with his avoidance of his so-called escort either, but he was a medic. They were never happy.

"First off, the general is putting himself in danger for no good reason, so of course I'll be cross with him. Second of all, stop calling me that, I have a name and its-" his medic was already moving up though, leaving the slower vox officer to fume impotently in the gathering dust behind him. The vox equipment did look rather heavy, so perhaps it was slowing him down? "Stop ignoring me!" He probably wouldn't given his own experience, but the kid would learn that soon enough. He walked over to the medic as the healer kicked the white armored trooper over, looking for lifesigns no doubt. As he did, the white trooper's helmet came loose, and Al'rahem grimaced.

It was a human, a young male with short dark hair, bereft of any mutation. He never liked fighting other humans, but this was particularly displeasing. Fighting humans was one thing, but fighting humans enslaved by aliens was another. The fact the xenos bred humans for the explicit purpose of fighting in their slave armies made his blood boil and had gone a good way towards restoring morale when revealed to the troops.

It was a nice, clear cut wrong that needed to be righted, unlike some cases that the regiment had encountered facing their kin before, and should they succeed against this republic then they would be freeing countless individuals from a similar fate. Who new how many had been born to die in xenos cloning facilities like this young man before him, how many more would by the end? They likely couldn't save these ones with how deep the xeno's lies had sunk into their minds, such propaganda and corruption was insidious and you could never be sure you cleansed it all, but they could extinguish the twileks they guarded for their part in the suffering these humans were forced to endure. It wouldn't comfort them much, but hopefully in the process they could free the slave soldier's souls and let them return to the side of Him On Earth.

Screaming sounded from down the passageway, and as he looked up he saw the remaining members of the trooper's squad return under the arms of his Ogryn comrade, thrashing desperately in a futile attempt to get free. It seemed his instincts had guided him down the correct path to reunite with his command squad, the rest of which staggered out of the darkness with nothing but a few bruises to show for their fall. He shot a smug look at his vox officer, who had tried to insist the maps they had made of the caverns said this was a dead end and no, no matter how much his superior officer insisted "instincts" were not a valid reason to ignore said maps, an argument that lead to him slipping away with his medic once the kid had his back turned. The officer looked even more irritated than he had previously and was hopefully beginning to realize the futility of trying to change his mind.

He walked up to the rest of his command squad, who were gesturing for him to follow as they retraced their steps. The troopers in white seemed to increase their struggles as he approached, but he ignored them in favor of trying to see whatever it was they were trying to show him. Crouching in front of a tank sized hole in the tunnel, the Ogryn turned around and sheepishly scratched his head, dropping the enemies in the process. His escorts pinned them before they could recover luckily, but the big guy didn't seem to notice.

"Sorry boss" he said, somewhat down "I broke the walls like you said not to, cause of the uhh…Struktal Integy could cause a coll…callap…fall, right?" He asked, proud he remembered the words. Well, he almost did anyways. "But, but look" He said, perking up "I found the thing I did, the thing we was lookin for! I did good so its okay right boss?" Al'rahem peered into the hole, taking in the vast expanse of tents and buildings of obvious xenos origin stretched out below. It seemed the mechanicus's sensors were off by a bit. They had been right above the convergence point this whole time. He slapped the Ogryn on the back and gave him the his best winning smile. "Yes buddy, yes you did"

As the Ogryn started to make excited noises, Al'rahem strode over to his vox officer. The kid opened his mouth, likely to try and remind them he had a name again, but the general was having none of it. "Replacement, vox the rest of the regiment, tell them we've found it". He kept walking, not bothering to wait for a reply as he headed back to where he assumed the rest of his troops should still be. "And tell them to bring as much rope as they can carry from the landers!" He shouted over his shoulder. It had been a while since he had assaulted a city through its ceiling. No matter when, no matter where, they never seemed to expect it. Not an easy task, but it could be worse. At least they had started with the high ground this time.

oOo

Ima-Gun Di had been to many refugee camps prior to the clone wars. His peacekeeping duties meant they were the kind of areas he would travel to, and over the many years he had spent in them, he had come to realize they had a distinct smell. It was a mix of blood and other assorted bodily fluids, the rotting smell of untreated wounds, the fumes of poorly dug new sewage facilities and the smell of unwashed and sweaty civilians. It wasn't a pleasant smell, and it was one he had come to associate with war, as in his experience where there was war this smell wasn't far behind.

The atmosphere of the camp wasn't any better. As he sat on an empty ammunition box, he could see countless young and old twileks quickly moving about, bent over as if to ward off an incoming blow. Their eyes darted around the area, looking for any sign the enemy had come. Instead, they saw overcrowded houses filled to brim with as many as refugees as was ethical, and countless tents brought out from emergency supply depots to house the many, many others that the houses could not accommodate.

What they didn't see where many adults in their prime. When it was reported the newly arrived fleet had started bombing twilek settlement they could find, the freedom fighter Cham Syndulla had gathered most of them as volunteers and charged off to rescue any twilek out there that could still be saved. He had not been heard from since, and it had become obvious since what had happened to them. The Jedi clenched his hand, anger briefly interrupting his sorrow before decades of emotional conditioning suppressed it. Cham was just the newest good being murdered by this new group of genocidal monsters.

Monsters was a good term for those he faced. Planetary invasions were common enough, but he had never heard of immediately slaughtering every single civilian on the face of a planet until these new groups had showed up not so long ago. No on knew where they came from, or where the anomalies that followed had either, but the new civilizations that had appeared barely a week prior had quickly proven themselves a bane on all life, and civilization itself.

Not only were they erasing the people of Ryloth, but with them went countless years of oral history and much of their traditional dances and rituals. How much art had been destroyed by the bombings, how many stories and legends sent up in smoke? Even if the planet was repopulated, the Twileks as a civilization would likely be extinguished. In its place would be a group of colonists with no connection to the people that had once called the planet home. The dances the people of Twilek were famous for would likely be forgotten with so many of the ones who taught them dead, and much of their architecture would die with their artisans. Small details like these were what truly made genocide such a horrid act. And a rare one.

Yet these newcomers seemed as if they intended to commit it wherever they could. They had done it on every world they had encountered so far, giving no quarter and expecting none in return. Even more concerningly, with how effective they were at destroying literature and hunting down fleeing refugees, it was obvious this was something they were very good at, a level of skill that only came from experience. Where could they have gained that experience without being noticed, what kind of culture could produce individuals willing to excel in such a matter?

The monsters that were currently doing their best to find and kill so many people were strange indeed. They dressed in many different uniforms despite fighting as one army, with the ones in the tunnels wearing dark brown boots and a pair of light brown desert patterned pants and a shirt that suggested they were used to desert fighting. The only armor they seemed to wear were the small pauldrons on their shoulders and helmet under the white headdress they all wore, but as it turned out the uniform was actually a highly resistant material that could stand up to blaster fire. The reports of the Twileks on the surface before they were destroyed suggested the other soldiers wore things like greatcoats and fur hats designed for winter, or charcoal grey uniforms similar to the first group but with archaic respirators covering their faces.

The lack of uniformity was strange, as it seemed that despite being so focused on wiping out other cultures they were so tolerant of differences within their own ranks they didn't even have a standard form of dress. They were also reported to have large creatures, roughly twice their height serving with them in small numbers, and a few other obvious non-humans, such as a few troopers with scales or a great deal of fur on their arms and feet as well as less than half their compatriots height. This meant, seeming dedicated to exterminating other races, they were perfectly content to fight alongside them.

The Jedi cradled his head in his hands. None of this made any sense. A widely permissive culture that was dedicated to destroying others, a group of humans that was determined to exterminate other species yet fought beside them, what series of event could have possibly led to this coalition forming? Worse yet was their emotional states.

He was no expert at reading the feelings of others, but they were close now and he could feel the soldier's hearts. They were darker than any he had even encountered before, filled with hate, anguish, and sorrow, but also determination, comradery, and a blazing faith that stunned him the first time he had felt it. Whatever had happened to these people had left deeper scars than could likely be healed and left them as for the lack of a better word fanatics. Those were never easy to fight.

Ima-gun di looked up as he heard a pair of boots crunching gravel just in front of him. It was a clone captain, one that had seen better days. There were few spots on his armor that weren't scarred or blackened by the laser weapons of the enemy, and his helmet's visor had a crack running diagonally down the center. The brown markings that had originally made the armor distinctive were all burnt away, and there was a visible limp as the clone approached.

The clone saluted once he got into arms reach of the Jedi. "General, Sir, we've started moving the refugees to the back of the cave. The passage to Lessu has been cleared of all debris, so we should be able to make good time once we depart. Any word from the fleet?" The nikto shook his head slowly. "They'll be here, but enough about them, when was the last time you got some rest captain?"

The Jedi couldn't see the clone's face but could feel the grimace his whole body seemed project. "There will be plenty of time for that once the civilians are safe general" the clone said, with a note of defiance entering his voice at the end. Ima-gun di narrowed his eyes, trying to meet the clone's despite his inability to see them. "You can't do any good half asleep Keeli. Get some rest before I have to make it an order. You've more than earned it."

The clone captain peeled off his helmet, exposing his scowling face as he leaned forwards. "With all due respect _sir_, my brothers are **dying** out there and every second I'm out of it is one less second the enemy is delayed and one less second the Twilek have to escape!" He made as if to continue, but the General suddenly held up a hand to stop him. The nikto looked around, scanning for any sign of enemy activity. "Captain call the men back, I feel a disturbance in the force, as if it is trying to warn me about something".

"The men are back sir, remember you order a halt to the ambushes yourself to speed up the evacuation?" The clone paused, and then his eyes narrowed. "Have you slept at all since the invasion started sir? You look awful." He hadn't. In truth he was in much worse shape than the clone, but morale was already at rock bottom, so he couldn't show it. Many of his horns were chipped or broken, and he had several scars from close calls with the laser weapons of his opponents, but most of the damage was thankfully hidden by his now hole riddled Jedi robe. There was no way he would still be allowed to move about if the medics could see what was below it.

He sighed. The lack of sleep and mounting wounds were starting to get to him. Perhaps he had imagined the disturbance, perhaps-

He blinked, shaking his head. He was on the ground, how had he gotten there. He had just been sitting. There was muffled shouting on the edge of his senses. He could feel himself being lifted up, being carried and his blurry eyes finally seemed to recover from whatever had happened at about the same time his ears did. "It'll be okay sir, we'll get you out of here." He was concussed. Probably. It certainly felt like it.

The world around him was dyed orange. Pieces of stone were still tumbling down, followed by countless red beams and the occasional bright blue ball. The enemies had blown the ceiling he realized belatedly. They were shooting them now, like fish in a barrel. He could see the tents burning, hear the cries of trapped Twileks below the buildings that had once housed them, and smell the blood in the air.

He shrugged off Keeli, stumbling slightly as he tried to stand unaided. As the captain whirled around, concerned, he managed to wheeze out his likely final orders. "Captain" A breath "You must" a cough "MUST get the survivors to safety. We…we don't have any more time. The rest is up to you and Skywalker" Thinking was hard. Talking was hard. Definitely at least partially concussed. He shook his head, the force steadying his mind. It wouldn't last, but neither would he in all likelihood.

"Sir…" The clone hesitated, only to see the shapes of brown clad troops begin to descend on hastily tied ropes along the walls. "Yes sir. All right men, we're moving out, fighting retreat! Grab everyone you can and let's GO!" As the clone disappeared into the dust kicked up by the falling stones, Ima-gun Di smiled. They hadn't known each other long, but still he considered the man his friend. He was glad one of them would be getting out of this.

He turned and ran towards the nearest building, using the force to lift the rubble before pointing the survivors in the direction of the escaping clones. Again and again he did this, heading closer to the exit the whole time. He had to stay just outside the rapid advance of the troops, or he would be freeing the Twileks just for them to have them meet their ends at the hands of the invaders. But each stop took time, time he didn't have.

At last, with the exit in sight, they caught up with him. He first noticed them as red laser fire scythed down the Twileks he had just freed from the ruin of their home. As he turned to face them his lightsaber activated, flowing into positions the force guided it to and reflecting several shots back at his attackers. As they fell with surprised yells he reached out with the force and pulled a piece of large debris in front of him. Keeping it steady, he charged.

He couldn't tell what they were doing on the other side, but the piece of masonry shook as it was hit countless times during his advance. The street blurred as the force lent him speed and in seconds he was upon them. The piece of architecture flew forwards with one last push, crushing at least five of them as he pivoted and swing his lightsaber thrice, finishing the squad.

Already the next squad had him in their sights. He leaned back, letting a missile scream past him by but a few centimeters. The force warned him again, and he was airborne. Looking back he could see yet another squad tear apart the ground he had just been standing upon with a barrage of shots before their guns quickly swung around to track his movement. He landed on top of a ruined house and quickly jumped again into the middle of the new squad, hoping they would provide some cover from their comrade's fire.

As his lightsaber claimed the first two soldiers, the one with the most decorated uniform reached down and drew a screaming whirring blade that more resembled a chainsaw than anything sensible. The likely officer lunged at the Jedi as his back was turned, but he was to slow. The nikto threw out a hand and sent the man flying through the air with the force. The soldier impacted one of the many surrounding rubble piles with a crack and did not move again.

Another few blows finished the squad and as he did, Ima-gun di realized he was being ignored. The other squad from before had already disappeared and many more streamed past now in the direction of the exit. Even assuming all went well there were enough that he could not kill them faster than they were arriving at the opening, he needed a better way to distract them. Scanning the crowd, he saw what must be a high-ranking officer, a man with a long tattered coat and a archaic looking sword clutched in his hands.

If he killed the officer, a break down in the command chain would at lest hamper the enemy. This was the though that saw the Jedi blur towards the enemy officer, lightsaber raised to strike. The man must have heard him coming, as just before Ima-gun di could take his head he spun towards him and threw his blade into a practiced looking block. As the Jedi's lightsaber connected, the sword emitted some kind of glowing field, repelling the plasma blade.

Surprised, the Jedi was put on the backfoot when the officer lashed out with a kick that connected squarely with his stomach, bending the nikto over and staggering him. The jedi threw himself aside and grimaced as he felt an intense flash of heat. The officer had drawn a glowing pistol and fired it a second time, emitting a searing ball of energy. The nikto jumped over it and threw himself downwards with the force, barely escaping a volley of fire the human's escort threw at him as he did. The flying blow forced the human officer to his knees, allowing the Jedi time to take a breath and throw out a hand, scattering the man's escort.

As he did the nikto was distracted for the briefest of moments, allowing the officer to twist his blade and drive it forwards towards the Jedi's heart. The nikto dodged to the side and grabbed the arm as it passed, only to have his eyes widen as he saw the glowing pistol discharge from below said arm.

Forced to let go and jump back, the Jedi took the opportunity to pull some of the more unstable debris piles nearby down, isolating the two combatants. The human officer lunged as he did, he arm set aflame by the proximity to the glowing pistol's blast. Ima-gun di threw his arm up just in time to block it, but off balance from the effort to collapse the rubble he could not keep his hold on the blade and it flew away. The Jedi lept after it, desperate to reclaim his weapon and in doing so was unable to fully dodge them next blast.

Ima-gun di screamed as the near miss connected with his outstretched arm, destroying it and everything above the collarbone on that side in a blaze of heat. His robes ignited at the same time, but through force of will he managed to complete the roll and catch the falling lightsaber.

The nikto spun, just in time to parry a two handed downwards blow from the human officer. The human launched a flurry of strikes, coming down again and again in an effort to break the nikto's guard. As Ima-gun Di's knees hit the ground he lashed out with the strongest mind trick he could muster. It only stunned the man for half a second, but that was enough for the Jedi to lash out with an upward swing and leave a glowing gash across the officer's armor.

He had dodged backwards in time to avoid being split in two, but judging by the smell of burnt flesh not enough to avoid the blow. Now the officer was on the defensive, and a second blow split the front of the helmet he was wearing. As the human threw himself sideways to avoid a third downwards blow, the damaged helmet flew off revealing a snarling face and a very impressive set of facial hair.

The fourth blow was met with a block, and the fifth with a riposte. For the next minute the two exchanged blows, but as the fight continued Ima-gun Di could feel himself start to flag, his lack of rest beginning to cost him. A sweeping upward slash sent the Jedi stumbling backwards, and the returning downwards slash forced him into retreat. As he staggered backwards, just over the sound of the clashing energy fields he could hear the sound of machinery whining. The human must have a prosthetic.

The officer lashed out with another kick, this time dodged though with considerable effort. As the nikto brought his lightsaber down on the spot the leg had been second ago, he saw a massive shape crest the debris blockade he had created and start sprinting for the two. He was out of time, he had to finish this now.

Pulling on all the strength he could muster Ima-gun Di lashed out with a force push he could hear crumple the human's rib cage. Knowing this to be his last chance the nikto hurled himself forwards, barely avoiding the automatic slug thrower fire of the giant behind him as he came down on the human officer. A desperate deflection turned the slash into a stab, piecing the man's upper bicep. The human roared in pain and brought up the glowing pistol to fire another shot, sword arm still trapped. The shot went of prematurely, missing by a large margin but forcing the Jedi to stop his next slash, aimed at the human's head, due to the brightness of the blast. As the Jedi reeled, unable to see, he felt his lightsaber sweep through where the head should be yet meet no resistance. As the nikto opened his panicked eyes, he did so just in time to see the snarling officer drive his blade through his chest.

Ima-gun Di gasped, staggering backwards as the blade exited his chest and watched as the officer flicked the blood clear with a shaky flourish. The human staggered to his feet, only to be picked up by the giant that sprinted past the nikto. The officer protested weakly, but the giant ignored him and instead carried him over to the other humans that were just now clearing the barricade. The lead one quickly pulled out a dispenser of some kind and began spraying what looked like skin directly on the wound.

The world seemed to turn sideways as the Jedi fell over, no longer able to support his own weight. Splashing down into a pool of his own spreading blood he realized he could no longer breath. He had failed. All he could do now was hope he had bough enough time with the enemy scrambling to save their officer for the Twilek and the clones to get a good head start. 'Keeli' he thought as the darkness claimed him 'please, succeed where I failed. May the force be with you'.


	4. Arc One: Ryloth-Counter Attack

**AN: I am going to take this opportunity to bitch about Star Wars classifications. They all supposedly use the Anaxes war college, but half the things they classify are called something else. For example, the consular class cruiser is also called the consular class frigate, but in actuality is a corvette. Trying to keep the classifications right is giving me the worst migraine when the sources disagree with one another. Having given up, I'll just use what the wiki calls them, but Star Wars characters tend to misidentify things (see: Everyone calling literally everything a cruiser) so if I call something by the wrong name its either because the character calls it that or because I mixed it up in my head. **

**AN Part two: Sorry for the wait, I had a rather concerning family emergency that took a little resolving. Did you know someone can go into cardiac arrest a dozen times in three days? I do now! Anayways, I wish that was a decent excuse but what you see was mostly done before then, with a little added on recently. I just am not as good at writing Anakin as I am random general #6790891. Its probably because Star Wars is primarily consumed via TV (especially with all the recent cartoon series) while 40k is mostly writing based, which is easier to express thoughts and get into a character's head in. Well, that or because most of my SW reading was Thrawn era. That led to me stalling for most of July before I decided to just break it off here and post another chapter later. Its already 8k words so it should be enough. Anyways, comment response time!**

**-SolarBlaster: Thanks! Wasn't exactly an English major, but wanted to write this anyways, so I'm happy its passable enough that my failtastic grammar doesn't get in the way.**

**-last admiral: Hopefully my Anakin is passable. I have a character arc planned out for him, so he will survive (at least for a little while). It won't be a fun time for him though, or Padme especially given she is an enemy politician in a galaxy that considers a passable assassin to me a multi ton 14 foot tall invisible psychic lizard-bug with scythe arms. **

**-PotatoGod69: All they need is an entrenching tool, the superior melee option. **

**-FORGEmaster: A good question. While the black dragons are awesome (and also in the middle of an attempted purge by the inquisition because they are the most unhelpful organization ever) and the marines malevolent would be great thematically (oh god just threw up in my mouth) the real question is **_**who would cause the most character death~**_

**Lessu, 7 days post convergence**

Leaning out of the cupola of his pride and joy, the ancient stormlord superheavy tank that had served as his mount for almost the full century and a half he had lived, Colonel Patton of the Minervan 63rd sigh in contentment. The sun was shining, the wind was blowing a pleasant breeze on his face, and they were actually adequately supplied for once. It was a wonderful day to kill Xenos. It would be even better if they could actually get a move on.

In the two days since the siege had started, they had been plagued by one failure after another. First, the brat now in charge of Colonel Jurgen's regiment refused to shoot anywhere near this "VIP" they were supposed to retrieve as a secondary objective, meaning if these Xenos were anything like the usual bunch they managed to save all their elites by cramming them next to their cowardly leaders. Then, it turned out the enemy's tanks were small enough they could be hidden in the central plaza where the upstart LT wouldn't fire, and those tanks had enough range to bombard the Mechanicus bridge crews as they worked. It had taken some rather dangerous looking stunts involving low flying Valkyries and missile launchers to discourage that. Then, as it turned out, one of the key construction units broke down and the Martians refused to fix it without spending half the day flicking oils on it.

Well, they had their bridge now, and with nothing better to do the useless equipment and personnel, like the artillery regiment, were being ferried back to orbit. They might have to get out of here in a hurry after all. It was unlikely the flyboys claimed, there is no way a fleet will get here before the operation is over they said. Of course, now that they had made such claims the fleet was probably in system, that's just how things worked in the guard.

Patton drummed his fingers on the edge of the cupola, impatience starting to take its toll. They had one, final holdup before they could leave. The red robed nuisances had decided they wanted to take the constructs back with them and wouldn't move off the bridge until he agreed. As in, most of them, if not all. Now, Patton was no priest, but that sounded heretical to him. Wasn't there some rule about messing with Xenos tech?

They were shouting at him, and he was ignoring them. It was fairly easy actually, as while the salamanders had been returned to orbit as the cleansing of the villages was over, he still had just over 4,800 tanks idling outside the besieged city, and the sound of that many engines was more than enough to drown out even the most determined adept. For a moment he was tempted to just run the…man? Was it still a man? Well, run the whatever it was over with his thirteen plus meter long tank. If pressed by his subordinates later, he would say that souring relations with the mechanicus was a bad idea, but in truth there was over a meter of clearance below his tank. The adept would just duck, and with those strange insectoid legs he wasn't sure his tank could move fast enough to avoid the now angry adept or his likely increased tirade.

It suddenly struck him, did tech priests need to breathe? The Colonel realized with dawning horror the answer was likely no, and if that was the case he might be here until the fleet arrived. Fine then. No other option. "You can come magos but stay _behind_ us. I won't stop firing just because you wander into the way. The infantry will escort you."

The red robed questionably human individuals chittered happily in their foul machine language and moved out of the way, at last allowing him passage to the thoroughly leveled city. The front wall was identifiable only by the foundation it had left behind clearly separating the rubble in the dirt from the rubble in the dirt that used to have people in it. The fact that everything on their way in was splattered brown didn't help. He didn't know why the enemy thought the natives would make good ablative armor, but all the dried blood wasn't helping the place's appeal any.

The front of the tank column was taken up by the mobile bunkers the good general had "acquired" on Nihilas. He wasn't sure how he had acquired the ammo and fuel as well given those had been stored in orbit, but he certainly wasn't complaining. They were all durable enough to endure any ambushes, and more importantly all equipped with a dozer blade like most Kreig tanks. Following them were the regiments surviving dozer equipped tanks formed up in rows of fifteen. Six rows behind the Ragnaroks and Leman Russes his own tank came flanked by the regiments own superheavies. As they reached what appeared to have been a park of some sort, they began to come upon the first barely intact buildings and accordingly began to split.

The layout of the city obtained by the fleet in orbit showed that it had what could be termed as three routes. The outer ring on the ground was accessed by going right, and likely where the civilian populace had lived. To the left was a ramp that would spiral up to the top of the city, likely where the nobility lived. The center path lead to city center, and the VIP.

The column would split into three, taking roughly a third of the tanks down each path. The infantry and Hellhounds and would clear the buildings as the tanks up front cleared any enemy armor. The Macharius heavy tanks would guard the backline from ambushes and lead the way out once they were done here.

Patton signaled the advance, his column taking the center path. It seemed to have been built the best, as past the piles of rubble there was still a gate some distance ahead, and a twenty meter tall wall attached to it. If the enemy had anything in the way of tactical planning, they would at least attempt an ambush there. The 5 Ragnaroks that took up the vanguard ground to a halt about ten meters from the gate, battle cannons aimed at the dull grey structure. Blasting through the gate was obviously what the enemy planned on them doing, so naturally they would refuse to oblige them.

The walls of the city were, by imperial standards, rather thin. As such rather than find another hidden entryway they would simply go through them. Breaking from the armored column the Colonel took his tank ten meters to the left of the massive gate, eyeing craters on the wall as he did so. This looked like the right place. As combat was about to resume, no matter how much he loved commanding from the turret like back in his days as a Russ commander he simply had to be elsewhere to be truly effective. Descending several levels as briskly as was safe, he slid into the command center of the tank. Now surrounded by tactical displays, vox suites, and a thousand other useful devices, he was as effective as any coward hiding himself in a command bunker. As he set himself down in his command throne, he gave a single order; "Floor it!"

The walls of Lessu were meant to withstand many things but ramming by a superheavy tank was not one of them. As the section of wall collapsed round him Patton retreated fully into the tank's interior, closing the hatch behind him. As useful as the pintle mounted heavy stubber was, in all likelihood they were about to get hit hard. The display in front of him seemed to agree with that assessment. As the tank cleared the new pile of ruble he could see ranks of the tan skeletal constructs favored by the enemy turn in unison to face him, a good number of which carried tubes, likely rocket launchers of some sort. For whatever reason they were lined up as if getting ready for a parade, all out in the open without even the barest attempts at cover, despite having more than enough time to dig trenches or drag debris from elsewhere. Behind them were the much faster to turn arrow shaped enemy tanks and a few tall four-legged walkers.

The stormlord plowed right through the first rank of constructs, crushing any that did not flee under its massive treads. As it made for the gate it swept its roaring megabolter across the infantry who lacking cover simply had no hope of surviving, hundreds of shells blasting meter wide holes in the ground and sending tan metallic shards flying everywhere like the worlds largest frag grenade. Simultaneously his two lascannons opened up and began picking off the walkers, piercing right through the hideously exposed cores. His heavy bolters, with a lack of anything better to do, began targeting the still standing houses in the vicinity, as the enemy had likely hidden more useful troops in them.

As the tank roared towards the gate Patton took in his surroundings. The area was mostly open ground save for the houses lining the mountainside. About fifty meters from the gate was another gate, but this one was set into the mountain and seemed to be made of a likely higher quality, darker material. Behind him the Colonel could see Leman Russ variants streaming through the hole he made and veering off to either side so casualties wouldn't stop the flow of traffic, something that wouldn't be a problem in a moment.

As Patton reached the gate he turned the front of his tank towards it and quickly began blowing the hinges with his lascannons. At this point the enemy had begun returning fire, the constructs spewing a hail of useless red bolts towards the imperial armor. The surviving walkers however seemed much more effective, each sweep of a glowing red beam setting one or two imperial tanks ablaze while the large turreted hovertanks began gun duels with Russes, ones the hovertanks didn't seem to be very successful with, as the most they elicited from the Russes was a dent while the imperial tanks in turn merrily cut a swathe through their ranks.

As the last hinge was destroyed the gate fell forwards with a massive thud the five Ragnaroks slowly chugged their way forwards, ignoring all besides the second gate in front of them. Already they had begun to hammer it with their battlecannons while their escorting tanks fanned out, letting guardsmen and hellhounds pass behind them. Their dozer blades meant for clearing rubble were now put to use sweeping through the growing piles of tan construct parts.

The enemy however was not content to fall apart so easily. The first sign of warning the Colonel got was more than a score of smoke trails blinding his rear visual displays, quickly followed by panicked cursing taking over the vox net. Quickly pivoting his chair to examine the tanks right side visuals, he spied the source of the regiments newest batch of troubles. Easily distinguishable by the massive wheels on each side of the vehicle, out of the smoke came rapidly firing fast moving vehicles with large racks on their back. It seemed the enemy had missile tanks. Wonderful.

It didn't look like the missiles quite measured up to the Krak missiles of the guard, but there were a lot of them. Patton saw a leading Russ take a missile to the side and raise slightly off the ground, then begin turning its turret towards the source of said missiles only to be hit by three more and explode. The enemy infantry seemed to be recovering from the shock as well, and more and more of their rocket troopers began hitting the mark. From the buildings near the mountainside came larger, darker versions with heads sunk into their chests, capable of firing multiple rockets from their wrists without reloading.

While more and more Russes began transforming into smoking pyres the advancing Ragnaroks continued their advance, seemingly impervious to the missiles of the enemy. A sea of light brown uniforms were converging around them, Tallarn squads using the tanks as cover from the hail of enemy fire the air was filled with. Other squads hugged Russes, active or burning as they tried to bring up their heavy weapons specialists. One squad managed to hit a missile tank as it dodged past the Ragnaroks, their melta sheering its wheels from the frame and sending its now separate sections tumbling through masses of the tan constructs.

Some soldiers however had no such concerns for personal safety. Clothed in uniforms not dissimilar to his own grey Minervan armor, a knot of about a hundred Kreig guardsmen charged past the tanks, firing their stronger but slower Lucius pattern lasguns with expert precision. Like the crew of the Ragnaroks, the scattered survivors of the destroyed Kreig regiments of Nihilas had been swept up by General Al'rahem. The munitorum had written them off after a charge deep into the heart of the enemy and lacking a regiment to return to they had latched on to the nearest group of imperials.

Like their tank crews the Kreigers charged on with no apparent concern for their own lives, slamming into the advancing elite constructs in a wave of faith and fury. As his tank completed its turn he saw more than one of the constructs go down with an entrenching tool stabbed through its sunken head as the Kreigers swept through them, the Xenos constructs being simply no match for such determined attackers.

As the weapons of his superheavy tank lashed out, tearing a dozen enemy vehicles in two he couldn't help but struck by the fanaticism of such a disregard for personal safety. All guardsmen had at least some strong degree of faith, there was a saying that went something along the lines of there being no soldier with low amounts of faith on the battlefield or something like that, but for most it was somewhat restrained. The general, like most of Tallarn stock was a devout man, and had a shrine in his personal quarters. Occasionally, he would lead a group prayer before a major assault, but it never distracted from the battle. The new girl, the Valhallan Colonel, would chant benedictions and desperate prayers for salvation and strength during those fits of battle fatigue she thought none of the others could see. For him though, it had always been more of secular matter.

As his heavy bolters tore a walker's limbs off, he wondered if it was an effigy to their gods. It was dissimilar enough to the other vehicles that it might be the case. Most Xenos had them, and he had fought the archenemy enough time to realize that the gods of others were no mere figments of a deranged imagination. He had seen weirdboyz invoke the wrath of the Ork patrons to tear titans in two and witnessed the power of the Necron deities reduce entire regiments to ash. So if that was true, and the Ecclesiarchy was spouting nonsense (which given the members he had met didn't surprise him much) then what did that say about the Emperor?

The Kreigers had cleared a path to the gates over the broken bodies of thousands of constructs and as such the Ragnaroks began hammering it with their battle cannons, eager to get at the Xenos within. The Minervan Colonel considered helping them, but as he did a trio of missile tanks swerved past, their underslung guns cutting several squads of Tallarn troopers down. As his lascannons began tracking the vehicles, he scowled, not pleased at all at being distracted from his philosophical musings. The way he saw it, the Emperor was humanities benefactor, and like the gods of other species His fate was tied to the mortals that worshipped Him. It was likely more of the relationship between the Admech and the rest of the Imperium than anything else, one of mutual aid and reliance, but not understanding or true comradery.

The missile tanks didn't last long, as it was remarkably hard to dodge lasers, and so his tank kept turning until it faced a battery of hovertanks. While no match for a Russ individually, it seemed sheer weigh of numbers let them reduce dozens of the Imperium's MBT to burning wrecks. Even with near fifty of them huddled together though, with his Stormlord there was simply to great a difference in quality and soon the battery was torn apart via a storm of megabolter fire.

As the last gates started to come down due to the barrage of battlecannon fire, he wondered if the Xenos in there was praying. It might be heretical, but he didn't hate Xenos, not really. Most were just trying to make their own way in the galaxy, worshipped their own gods like the Imperium did the Emperor, and generally just wanted to live happy lives like the citizens he protected did. For every Khrave or Slaugth, there were a thousand Naiads or Jokaero. Even the weird ones like the Kroot weren't that bad once you got to know them.

But the galaxy was cruel, and even if they did decide to risk allowing the existence of other species despite what it could lead to there would never truly be peace. They would take resources humanity need to survive, interfere with operations humanity needed to complete, and be at risk from chaos and genestealer corruption, and that wasn't considering what their gods would do to compete with the Emperor. Perhaps if the galaxy could see peace one day it might be possible to coexist, but even then there could only be one at the top of the pile, and no matter their possible good intentions humanity could never cede that position to any other. It was nothing personal, but at the end of the day it was humanity or Xenos, and each group would always choose to fight for their own over all others.

As he had the tank to scythe down another formation of constructs he noticed that the Tallarn infantrymen had made it to the mountainside buildings. They stood back, ready to cut down any surviving constructs that fled the buildings as the hellhounds, safety now mostly assured by the decimation of enemy armored units, began turning the buildings into blazing pyres. The houses quickly lost structural integrity as they did and collapsed, crushing any constructs that did not flee into the waiting guns of the Tallarn guardsmen. With the tanks routed and infantry mostly cut down, the anti-tank weapons fire began to fizzle out, not yet stopped but reduced enough that it was a threat only to the unwary.

The tank column was spreading out now, chasing retreating missile tanks across the inner ring. The last gates, now full of dents and the occasional hole, fell inwards with a massive thud. Tallarn infantrymen continued to follow the flow of tanks into the ring, one platoon escorting a group of red robed figures. The tech priests were surrounded by servitors that they would hand pieces of construct to, as well as the occasional intact model. Several broke from the group to begin pilfering what they could from tank wreckage, while the head magos skittered over to Patton's tank, following it as it advanced towards the fallen gates.

The Kreigers hadn't bothered to wait for them. The Ragnaroks and accompanying infantry had charged straight into the gap, much to their detriment. The gate had been flanked by several batteries of smaller walkers, four legged like their larger counterparts, and the lead Ragnarok was finally overwhelmed. It burst into flame but kept going, its crew managing to drive over a walker on its way to the wall before it finally ground to a halt. Even burning alive, the sons and daughters of Kreig refused to stop fighting.

The second and third Ragnaroks did better, their durable frames allowing them to absorb the punishing volley of walker fire and advance to the center of the chamber, battle cannons firing all the while. They reaped a heavy toll on the small walkers before they did, but upon reaching the center rockets flew at them from every angle, detonating both tanks within seconds of each other. By this point the Kreig infantrymen had finished off the small walkers and were advancing to the center of the open area, a circle about fifty meters across ringed by twelve columns and hemmed in by walls of brown mountain stone. Dead ahead was an opening on the other side of the mountain, indicating this was likely a shuttle bay of some sort. Unfortunately for the Xenos, it was bereft of any such craft for the creature to flee from.

The fourth and fifth Ragnaroks advanced with no more caution than its compatriots, perhaps eager to join Him on Terra as their comrades had. However, having fired their first shots the now revealed rocket constructs needed time to reload, time the fourth and fifth heavy tanks had no intention of giving them. The tanks opened up with their heavy stubbers and battle cannons, even angling to allow their hull mounted lascannons to over penetrate a few poor constructs. As the death corps troopers ran up to join them, the Xenos unleashed their final line of defenses.

As the return fire began to scythe down the skeletal constructs eight bronze and grey balls erupted from their ranks, rolling into firing positions away from the battle cannons of the heavy tanks. They quickly unfolded to an odd insectoid appearance dissimilar to any other construct yet seen, resembling three quarters of an empty circle with stubby legs and two arms for weapon emplacements. They quickly began firing into the infantry with a pair of twin linked guns, each shot claiming a kill. As the Kreigers returned fire a blue dome appeared around the constructs.

Void Shields. They could put shields on something so small and apparently mass produce the model. As far as the Colonel new, such devices when miniaturized were extremely rare, and were always in short supply. Most officers he knew would give multiple limbs for a rosarius, yet here a xenos species was handing them out to infantry. Beside him he heard the magos give an electronic squeal and rush into the chamber. Patton cursed, unable to follow due to the Stormlord's immense size. If the magos got himself killed it would mean dire things for his regiment.

The Ragnaroks, having finished the skeletal constructs off, were now turning to engage the constructs massacring their brethren. One of the constructs had fallen when, but either poor luck or insufficient planning, it had set itself up near the largest concentration of surviving Kreigers. Though whittled down to about fifty men from the earlier charge and the current ambush, the Lucius pattern lasgun was a powerful weapon and with twenty such guns focusing on it the first construct fell, its shields overwhelmed.

Seeing the tanks preparing to engage them, the constructs quickly began repositioning. Two were close enough to walk behind nearby columns, firing all the while, but most were only able to do so if they dropped their shields and returned to their ball form for additional speed. Only for one was this a viable option though, as it was positioned out of the firing arcs of both the tanks and the Kreigers. It spun towards the exit, no doubt trying to flank the tanks only to receive a full body tackle from the good magos. It was quickly wrapped in his mechadendrites and disabled, the magos chittering happily as he began quickly retreating with his(?) prize.

The others, unable to return to their initial form due to the continued barrage of Kreig lasfire, slowly retreated towards pillars of their own far to slowly. One was shattered by a battle cannon shell, shield simply unable to stop such a powerful blow, while another two were overwhelmed by a deluge of heavy stubber rounds. The last exposed construct was unfortunate enough to fall into the fourth Ragnarok's frontal arc and was bisected by its lascannon.

The surviving constructs had not been idle in this time though and used the distraction their brethren provided to reposition. Now flanking both the tanks and the infantry they resumed firing into the Kreigers. Many were cut down as they turned to face the survivors, though they were no longer alone. The Tallarn infantry had at last caught up and streaming around the Stormlord guarding the entrance they opened fire on the shielded foes, providing support for the now charging Kreigers.

One construct went down to the combined fire, though not before reaping a bloody toll on the advancing infantry, while the last was saved from annihilation as the Kreig charge reached it, the Tallarn infantry unwilling to risk hitting their fellows. The first Kreig guardsmen hit the shield, frying it and himself in the process. The second stabbed the construct through the center with his bayonet and rocked it while the third impacted it in much the same way and bore it to the ground. The surviving Kreigers gathered around the construct and rapidly and repeatedly stabbed it with their bayonets, even after it had become evident it was no more.

The Tallarn infantry stopped by the now thouroughly eviscerated construct, some to examined it and the officers to question the Kreigers about the status of the VIP. Speaking of, Patton couldn't see the creature anywhere. They better not have splattered the thing by accident or high command would be…displeased. The Kreigers, anti-social as ever, began examining the room rather than replying, which was answer enough. Perhaps a hidden door?

As it turned out, the creature was instead cowering behind one of the pillars. The Kreigers, all seventeen of them, moved as one, having noticed an area of the room where the constructs had avoided standing, in retrospect likely to avoid a tank shell killing the Xenos by accident. The first thing Patton noticed about the thing was that it was not very fast. It tried to flee the Kreigers once they rounded the pillar it was hiding behind but didn't make it more than a meter before the sergeant caught up to it with a brisk walk and threw it to the floor.

The other Kreigers, having likely decided by internal squad vox, surrounded the Xenos quickly and grabbed each of its limbs, four to each and picked up its flailing body. The sergeant led them out of the room, ignoring what sounded like pleading in whatever language it spoke. As it got closer he saw it was clad in blue and silver armored robe, its body entirely covered except the head, which was mostly covered by a mask of some sort. Its thrashing was as pathetic to behold as it likely was in effectiveness. The creature was quickly carried out of sight, its destination one of the first landers to return to orbit.

Having as he began to reverse, he received vox notifications from the other Stomrlords that their columns had finished their sweeps. The lower circle of the city had been emptied, and that column had already begun to head for the dropships. The upper column however had discovered a tunnel of some sort. The tank commander believed that was where Al'rahem's fleeing targets intended to surface.

As he was about to order the commander to leave the matter to the hellhounds, a priority vox from orbit came in. "This is Patton, proceed." The other end was filled with static, but the words were still as clear as if spoken from within arms reach. "This is Admiral Steten Colonel. I can't reach the general, so you'll have to do. When you can, tell him the Xenos liberation fleet is here and he better hurry his ass up because they have a few more ships than we thought they would."

Patton sighed, casting his eyes to the screens showing the stars. Already, he could see the telltale flashes of the fleet in orbit firing their lances at whatever was headed his way. It should be weeks away they had said, we won't be here when they arrive they said. He sighed again, louder this time as he motioned to his first vox officer to open a channel to the rest of the regiment. That was life in the guard for you. "Right men, change of plans, Captain Bradley go get the chimeras before they get taken to orbit, we are going to need to get the Tallarn regiment out of here in a hurry. Captain Lee, take you column and set up a perimeter around the landing zone. Requisition any of the Hydras still on world. Everyone else clear the streets as soon as you can, and for the Emperor's sake SOMEONE GET ME THE GENERAL!"

oOo

As the blues and whites of hyperspace abruptly switched to the black of realspace, General Anakin Skywalker was once again struck by the enormity of the fleet before him. It was the biggest fleet he had ever seen, the biggest so far in the clone wars as far as he knew for that matter.

It was definitely one of the most diverse. As far as he could tell, every class of ship in active service was present here. He could see swarms of Consular-class frigates, four dozen total at the fleet's vanguard followed by thirty Arquitens-class light cruisers and twenty of the confusingly named Dreadnaught-class heavy cruisers as well as sixteen of the new Victory-class star destroyers.

These vanguard ships were spread out in an arrow formation around the core of the fleet, which in turn was comprised of six Venator-class star destroyers, three Procurator-class battlecruisers, and one of the new Praetor-class battlecruisers in a second arrow formation, his new flagship the _Resolute II_ to be exact. Inside the two arrows were ten Acclamator-class assault ships, packed to the brim with clone reinforcements for the beleaguered planet just now appearing in front of his bridge. All told they had 78 escorts, 42 cruisers, and 4 battlecruisers for a total of 124 ships.

The fleet arrayed against him looked like someone had put far too much effort into building the ships. They looked more like cathedrals than vessels meant for combat, but unlike his own fleet the ships were all mostly the same appearance wise, with sloping armored prows, lines of broadside guns and a vaguely boxlike shape. There were very few of their ships compared to the armada he commanded, but the enemy fleet was very high in tonnage.

Not a single ship in the enemy fleet was below Venator in size. The enemy actually had more venator sized ships than he did, double the amount in fact. They had another six ships bigger than a venator but still in the star destroyer size bracket, and four battlecruisers. The battlecruisers were all much bigger than his Procurators, two almost matching his Praetor in size and two half a kilometer bigger, further widening the tonnage disparity. The worst part of the twenty three ship fleet though was its centerpiece.

A dreadnought. They had a dreadnought. When the fleet had been dispatched to aid Ryloth, all they had know was the invaders were a fleet strong enough to defeat the separatist fleet and that the last scan detected at least 23 vessels in it. Dreadnoughts were not something seen before in the clone wars, given the classification had only been created by Anaxes recently. Only seven were supposed to exist, yet here one was, sitting in front of him.

The vessel was smaller than the ones belonging to the republic, a "mere" five kilometers to their eight, but that didn't change the fact it looked like the thing could tear a hole in his fleet singlehandedly. The cruiser sized cannon on its bow in particular was making him nervous. But he didn't have time for nervousness, as the situation on the planet had deteriorated immensely just before he had arrived.

Before they had lost contact with them, the remaining ground forces accompanying the surviving Twileks reported that their camp had been found and they were retreating up the only undiscovered tunnel, the one that went to Lessu. The problem was the city was likely in the enemy's hands at this point, which meant they were walking right into the guns of a genocidal army. Not that they had a choice with the second one at their backs, but if he couldn't force his way through and reinforce them they would be destroyed.

The sensors didn't detect life anywhere but in that city, so they were likely the only ones left. Anakin clenched his fists hard enough for the nails to pierce his skin at that thought. So many innocent people, murdered for no reason! It was monstrous. It also meant he couldn't afford to use a careful or even moderately sensible strategy. He had to go all in if the troops were to get to the surface in time to save Twilek lives and doing so would likely cost many clone lives in exchange.

He looked to his left and saw Admiral Yularen grimacing, likely having come to the same conclusion. "I've already ordered the fighters and bombers launched General Skywalker" the admiral said, eyes not turning from the transparasteel viewport "I kept a few squads back to guard the transports, but the majority are to target that dreadnought".

Already vast swarms of fighters and bombers were rising from the fleet's star destroyers, thousand upon thousands streaming towards the enemy fleet in an intimidating display. In retaliation, the enemy launched their own strike craft, though it seemed only two of the vessels were carriers in any capacity. Anakin was about to remark on the strangeness of such a doctrinal choice when he got a better look at the "strikecraft" the enemy was deploying.

"Admiral, are these scans accurate? Are the enemy actually deploying _corvettes_ from their carriers?!" Anakin's voice, like his thoughts, were incredulous. The craft spewing from the battlecruiser were over ten times the length of the V-19 torrents his own fleet was carrying and looked more like something meant to engage smaller capital ships than anything a carrier had any right to hold. "Not quite" the admiral replied, a tinge of shock entering his voice "but very close".

The immense enemy fighters were heavily outnumbered but in turn heavily outgunned their republic counterparts by a wide margin. They threw out curtains of fire towards the approaching torrents, the streaks of laser and missiles illuminating the void as the massive ships opened up on the republic starfighters. The torrents responded in turn, their numbers allowing them to easily match the volume of fire as they swarmed the human fighters.

Those same numbers allowed the bomber wings to pass mostly unimpeded, as the human starfighters were to busy dealing with Anakin's fighters to intercept them. As they closed in on the enemy dreadnought, its point defense roared to life about a thousand kilometers out, and in so doing proved to be as excessive as everything else about the fleet.

Kilometer wide explosions blossomed in space as the first bomber wave and escorting fighters ran straight into a wall of defense that in retrospect Anakin felt he should have realized would have to be excessively over the top to defend against small capitol ship spewing carriers. The first wave simply disappeared along with the rest of the Jedi's expectations about how space battles were supposed to go while the second wave began to desperately scatter and search for more effective approach vectors.

At that point he the vanguard fleet had entered weapons range and tried to support the beleaguered strikecraft, frigates and light cruisers moving up to lend their guns to the fighter brawl while the cruisers moved in to engage the enemy capitol ships. At this point the enemy's warships began to open fire, vast burning beams of crimson and blue being supported by for some reason incredibly large physical shells. While the enemy star destroyers and battle cruisers had turned to broadside the incoming republic vessels, the dreadnaught remained still, prow pointing towards the heart of the fleet, giving Anakin a terrible feeling deep in his gut.

As the capitol ships clashed the immense tonnage difference began to tell, especially since most of his larger ships stayed back in the second wave due to lacking the speed of the vanguard vessels. Arquitens and Consulars were torn apart, pierced either by the large beam weapons or battered to pieced by the projectiles. Some were taken apart by wings of the imperial strikecraft, close enough in size to make a dent individually in a wing they too out massed the smaller warships. Within a matter of minutes, the consular were pulled apart and the Arquitens were cut in down to twenty ships, but the time they had bought allowed the heavy vanguard vessels to move into engagement range.

The Victorys and Dreadnoughts did better, the much sturdier shields of the capitol ships resisting the barrage for a time as they fired back with storms of turbolaser blasts. As they held position over their ground forces, likely to cover them from the incoming strikecraft, the human ships could not dodge and one of the venator sized ships went down, falling into the atmosphere as its engines failed it firing all the way. A second was blown in half with a brilliant white flash, likely due to a hit of some critical component like a generator.

The ships were much more durable than they had any right to be though and survived many times the length any similar ship would be once they lost their shields. They weren't going easy, and already five dreadnoughts and a pair of victories had been reduced to drifting wreckage. The tide should be about to turn though, as the larger capitol ships including his _Resolute II_ were finally in range to bombard the so far stationary dreadnought.

Suddenly, the dreadnought's power surged and the ship at last began to move, aligning its massive cannon with his flagship. The vessel surged with power and a feeling of dread seemed to suffuse the bridge of the battlecruiser. Admiral Yularen quickly reacted, shouting "Hard to starboard! Quickly!" Anakin felt his flagship lurch under his feet as the emergency turn tilted the entire vessel enough that the enemy fleet appeared to be diagonal in relation to him.

The turn was just in time as something massive screamed past the _Resolute II_, streaking right through where the vessel had previously been and impacting the head Acclamator head on. Anakin couldn't see what had happened with the angle his flaghip was currently at but felt tens of thousands of beings simply disappear through the force in an instant. "Admiral, we detected a massive gravitational distortion just now" one of the clone officers began, before hesitating "Sir, it…it looked like a blackhole. Whatever it was, it took out 4 of the Acclamators."

Silence reigned on the bridge, the shock inflicted by the statement stunning both the Jedi and the bridge crew. "Well" Anakin started, nervousness suffusing his voice "at least we know why they valued that cannon over their main guns now." Anakin's mind was racing as he said this, still shocked by the sudden loss of so many lives and the fact the enemy dreadnaught _shot black holes_. From horrifying crimes to impossible weaponry, what kind of monster were they facing here?

"Admiral, its heading our way!" Alarmed, Anakin looked back towards the holographic display table and saw the dreadnought thundering out of the human empire's formation on a direct collision course with his own flagship. Any ships that got in its way it simply plowed through with its armored hull, smashing aside the few remaining Arquitens in this manner. A pair of victories moved up to broadside the ship only to get torn apart in a single barrage as it opened fire. On it came, paying seemingly no attention to the drifting carcasses of the ships that it left in its wake.

"We can't let that ship get to the Acclamators" while obvious, Anakin wasn't sure how else to prod Wulf for suggestions. "I'm not sure we can stop it" was not the response he had been hoping to hear, but it was the one he got. "I'm going to call all our capitol ships back to try and stall it, but that's probably what it wants." Anakin paused, not sure what the admiral meant by that until it suddenly struck him "This is a diversion! He's trying to get us away from the battleline, and the only reason he would do that is if there was something they needed to protect, something that is vulnerable enough the battleline and its fire would only endanger it. Admiral they must be evacuating the troops which means…they must be almost done down there!"

It seemed the Twileks had even less time then he had thought. "My thoughts exactly" Wulf confirmed "we need to get as many men down there right now as we can and try to get the Acclamators in later. I'm ordering the fighter to form up and escort every LAAT our fleet has down to that city. Its going to be uncomfortably close, but the alternative is to let these monsters complete their genocide. Not only would such an act be unthinkable, but the fact our largest fleet lost on its first deployment would destroy what is left of morale. Get down there General Skywalker before all is lost!"

"Got it Admiral!" Anakin shouted over his shoulder as he started running for the hanger. The vast bay was filled with clones streaming into various gunships, but even with the mass of bodies present it was easy for him to pick Rex out of the army clones with the force and quickly jog over to where he and his squad were getting into their gunship. Anakin quickly jumped in as the door began to close, feeling the LAAT leave the ground as he did. "Almost missed out on all the fun sir" said Rex, the clone captain moving to grab one of the ceiling grips "almost thought you were going to stay behind." Anakin smirked, Rex's mood managing to chase the dread that had plagued him since the Dreadnought fired away. "And leave you boys to get all the kills? Wouldn't dream of it. Besides, snips would never let me hear the end of it."

The squad accompanying them broke into laughter which only increased in volume once his padawan made herself known from his wrist comm "as it is, it seems I am stuck babysitting him, as the big strong Jedi Knight wouldn't come out and fly with the rest of us." Anakin huffed good naturedly "If I went out there and stole all the kills I would have to deal with your sulking, and then this mission might actually get difficult."

Before she could respond the gunship jolted, swerving hard back and forth in what Anakin immediately recognized as evasive maneuvers. "We're going through the warships AA now sir, you guy better hold on back there!" the pilot yelled, sounding more stressed than usual, which was expected. Anakin grimaced and raised his wrist comm to his face "What's the fighter coverage looking like Ashoka?" The sounds of combat were audible from the other side of the conversation, indicating she was likely taking fire.

"Not good, while they aren't willing to enter their ships' AA fire we can't follow either, so your on your own while we are stuck back where we started. Good luck Master!"

The boxy gunship jolted again, and Anakin nearly fell over. As he recovered, he gritted his teeth. He couldn't tell what was going on out there but with what he had seen of the murderous AA fire very few of his ships would be getting through this unscathed. Then a stronger jolt hit, one much more familiar to all aboard. They had hit atmosphere.

"All right men listen up." he began "We are about to drop into an active combat zone, one that is VERY hot. There will probably be another layer of flak" a statement which was interrupted by a sudden eruption of countless nearby explosions that were likely to be said flak "and our heavy support will be lacking because the Acclamators can't get through yet. We have to get the Twileks out of here so we'll be dropping right onto where they will be coming out from underground. There will be a heavy concentration of enemy armor there, so get your thermal detonators ready. You boys ready for this?"

The clones roared in affirmation as the LAAT came to a sudden halt, its doors sliding open. The squad and Jedi jumped out, blasters coming up and lightsaber igniting with its distinctive snap-hiss. The sight that greeted them was a city in ruins and rank after rank of tan uniformed troops supported by boxy tracked tanks. Some were burning wrecks hit by the staffing republic gunships while some were trying to return fire. Most were advancing towards the republic drop zone firing as they came.

As he and Rex's squad headed towards the nearest pile of rubble for cover, he saw a tank the size of a house crash through the ruins of what was likely a restaurant a week or so ago. As the monstrous tank ground towards spewing death it was momentarily engulfed in a series of explosions as gunship missiles burst on its armored hide. The tank burst from the smoke cloud with a few fires burning on its hull and its guns upturned, seeking its attackers. That was the chance he had been waiting for.

As the first Twileks started running from the caves into what they must have thought would be safety his squad began to fall back to cover them, now (temporarily) safe from the behemoth of a tank's guns. Another set of dropships swooped down to unload, some crashing and burning in the process, something he had seen many times before. Yet for some strange reason, no matter how much he tried, he couldn't help but feel this campaign would be different from all that had come before. That something dark was about to be unleashed, and nothing would ever really be the same again.

Perhaps it was a warning from the force, or just some premonition the dreadnought had triggered in his subconscious, but when he looked out onto the sea of human troopers and tanks in front of him, he couldn't help but be reminded of Geonosis all those months before. He shook his head, dispelling the image. It was probably just nerves, and besides when had he ever cared about what might happen or the dire warnings of others. Whatever this group of humans wanted, it couldn't possibly be as bad as the Confederacy or the Sith, right?


	5. Arc One: Ryloth-Finale

**AN: And here is the end of the Battle of Ryloth. Its first end was, well, I won't go into it but it was pretty dumb. I got a bit to into the Star Wars side of the theme trade and made it pretty action movie esque, even including among other things collapsing one of those giant pillars near Lessu to serve as a bridge. It really was pretty dumb, and I realized it was pretty dumb in the review stage so I rewrote it several times and this was eventually what I settled on. A lot of stuff is happening in Warhammer right now, with the Psychic awakening and massively important plot elements in Cawl's new book, so my overall plot has been disrupted a bit by things I could not have predicted (like the Eldar civil war, every year they get stupider). Luckily this Arc is the intro arc so it doesn't get affected that much. I am kind of worried about committing to a plot at this point given how much has been changing, but that's something I'll deal with later I guess. Now, onto the reviews.**

**Solarblaster: on the cathedral thing, you are correct, but I couldn't think of another word. The closest was temple, but the Jedi temple is rather plain looking and utilitarian on the outside compared to an Imperial ship. And yep, that was a Grav Shell. I mentioned them in chapter two and have always had a fondness for them since I read **_**Cadian Blood**_**. **

**Terrence: Yeah, I'm going to need to get creative with the GARs numbers. Even combining multiple sources, there were at best 8 million clones by the end of the war. That's infinitesimally small when it comes to an army at the galactic scale. That's less than half what was at Amarah for example, it would barely count as a hive militia! Even if I get creative and use the "by units they actually meant armies" argument and use legions for each clone soldier, you only get around 77 billion clones. That's…not good. I have some ideas, but right now the republic is firmly in the category of "hilariously outnumbered by everyone". Using cannon numbers, this actually includes the T'au given billions of firewarriorsmillions of clones. So yeah I'm going to fudge numbers more than a bit.**

**PotatoGod69: Oh yeah I forgot about those guys. Well, once we get to Ki-Adi-Mundi's chapter we'll see how that goes.**

**FORGEMaster: With the Cicatrix the GK are quite busy. As to whose first? Deathwatch is a possibility, but I haven't placed when their chapter is. I'm not actually sure yet.**

**Code Viper: Yeah, the interacting doctrines is a fun part of crossovers. The fighter spam and the gun heavy tactics of the IN and GAR are quite different and evolved under different pressures, leading to different outcomes. Both are not really prepared for how utterly different the other side fights. The imperium is still in carriers are icky land and the Republic thinks a ship without fighters is a dead one. BFG2 is a pretty great game and has great characters. Defiantly did not do the Ynnari any PR favors though. **

**Trickster3696: Shovels are the best melee weapon**

**DeadRich18: The priests and missionaries of 40k, despite the memes about them, are usually pretty good at their jobs of converting people to the cause of the GLORIOUS GOD EMPEROR (Roboute slamming his head onto his desk can be heard in the background). But yeah, once the imperium realizes this is not in fact the Tau 2.0 the usual factions will be making their attempts and power plays. Roboute, for all his flaws, does truly believe in the human spirit and wants the species to prosper, so him talking to a more pacifistic individual (for the given definition of the term anyway) should be interesting. The space sharks are probably one of the more hardcore astartes chapters, which given who we are talking about is saying things. Its kind of hard to write a compelling "and then everyone died" chapter though…Well, books were written about them and the Flesh Tearers so how hard can it be? They are now a candidate.**

**ManwithaPlan113: The kriegers are indeed quite hardcore. FW choose them as their mascot regiment to shove in most of their books for a reason. Fanaticism is an interesting topic, and while it comes up in this chapter will be talked about a bit more down the road given how integral it is to the setting. **

**AReader: I rather like the 40k method of just giving up and shoving things into weight classes. Though that does bring up the issue of the 30+km furious abyss, occasionally planet sized hive ships, and normal 8km retribution class all being "battleships".**

**Now that all reviews have been covered, onto the Story!**

**Lessu, 7 Days Post Convergence**

CT-7567, more commonly known as Rex to his brothers and friends, was not having a particularly good day. This was not uncommon for someone fighting a war, but as that was all he had ever known it took quite a bit to single a day out from the rest of their blood-soaked number as "not good". He had suspicions that this would be the case he heard they were dropping into a contested landing zone without air support, but the reality had been far worse.

They had cover now. The issue was that cover was the burning wreck of their LAAT. His squad was huddled behind the crashed vehicle as streams of red poured around them, watching as his comrades tried to find somewhere safe to land. There was nowhere safe though, and most that landed hit the ground as a corpse. The gunships were staffing and trying to take as much fire off the Troopers as they could but…

As he tried to take in the situation, another LAAT fell screaming from the skies not even ten meters away, wreathed in flame. The reason for it was the reason he was pinned here. He peeked his head around the edge of his cover and saw nothing but rubble and armor. The massive smoke clouds deployed by the enemy vehicles weren't helping either, but the downdraft of LAAT's on their attack runs blew the smoke around enough for him to get a decent view.

The enemy had demolished the city entirely, with not a single building still standing. Some of the tan robed enemy troopers were crouching in craters with rudimentary rubble barricades for cover, but most were crouching behind the many, many tanks the enemy had brought with them. A good portion of them behind the source of their problems, the massive center tank that made most buildings look small.

It sat in the middle of the massive line of tanks, spewing death from seven weapons ports. Four of them, three high caliber explosive guns and a fourth pintle mounted slug thrower, were firing at anyone unfortunate enough to lack cover. Its two laser cannons were aimed upwards, picking off the incoming troop transports and making landing even more difficult. The main problem though was its massive main gun.

Every so often a LAAT would wander to close and a sound not unlike metal disks being rapidly ground together would issue from he turret as it spewed a stream of light briefly, destroying whatever the gun was pointed at. It had taken three bursts for Rex to realize the turret was actually a much-upgraded version of the other explosive slugthrowers rather than a powerful direct energy weapon. The gun rarely fired, and instead tended to hover over a gaping hole in the cliff face behind him, waiting for its occupants to emerge.

The hole was surrounded by clone troopers in heavily battle-scarred armor, some with brown markings still showing beneath the blaster burns. The crouched behind rubble and in craters, taking what little cover they could, but mostly they crouched in a thick layer of gore. When they and the Twileks they had been guarding had burst from the tunnel the massive tank's main gun had opened up and tore them to shreds. Now the few scattered survivors were desperately trying to find a way to breakout while the main body of the clones and refugees stayed in the tunnel, where the sounds of combat got ever louder.

Rex ducked instinctively as a LAAT spun out towards the tank line just overhead, its body engulfed in flames. The gunships crashed into one of the smaller tanks, smashing it and the gunship apart. Amazingly, the tan soldiers using the tank for cover continued to fire, some taking the time to douse themselves by dropping and rolling before returning to fire while others simply took the opportunity to hurl what grenades they had before the flames set them off. The sight was utterly chilling to Rex. He had heard of fanaticism before of course, and amongst the CIS encountered more than a few truly and fervently dedicated to their cause, but only now did he truly understand what the world Zealot meant, its is was something he would remember to his dying days. He couldn't understand what could drive men to act like that, and he wasn't sure he wanted to.

It seemed that the crash had given general Skywalker an idea though. The Jedi was not far from where rex was, behind the next piece of rubble to the left, but even from here he could see that look on the Jedi's face. The look that said, "I'm going to do something stupid and you can't stop me because I'm the general" and always meant something interesting was about to happen. The Jedi turned to him, a grim smile on his face. "Rex and… Keeli was it?" The lone captain amongst the brown clad clones gave a "Yes sir!" in reply. "Right, Rex and Keeli, I have an idea to get us out of here. Tell everyone to get ready to run alright?" Oh, this was sounding like it was going to go great. Rex threw up a salute to match Keeli's as the both of them chorused "Yes sir!"

Skywalker spoke something in hushed tones into his wrist comm Rex could see another LAAT wing swing around, and a suspicion was born in his head. "Sir, if those get close that tank will-"he began, but was cut off by the general "Relax Rex they aren't coming over here." If not here, then where were they-

With a roar the two pairs of missiles streaked from each of the gunships, hammering into the bridge connecting the city. The sturdy mass of metal rocked and much of it caught flame, but the newly built bridge remained standing. There was a collective pause in the tanks assault, a stutter to silence as the turrets turned to track the fleeing gunships, and then the sound of treads. A minute passed, the clones staying still as they waited for whatever plan the Anakin had to come to fruition, before at his "Now!" they as one jumped from behind cover and ran forwards as instructed.

What they found was billow smoke and empty positions where the tanks and tan soldiers had been. Rex blinked, scanning the area as he kneeled in a firing position. "General Skywalker, sir…" he began, not moving his head due to fears of his enemy reappearing "where did they all go?" The Jedi smirked and gestured overhead at the barely visible flashes of light filling the skies. "They are on a time limit, just like us." He explained. "They need to leave before our fleet wins the orbital battle, so when the bridge was threatened and their retreat in danger of cutoff, they fled."

Rex had some doubts about this being the case. He had seen that terrible fire of fanaticism burning in their eyes, their thought almost laid bare. He sincerely doubted these were the kinds of people that would fear for their lives being lost in such a trap, but he couldn't deny that they were gone. Behind him he could hear some shouting and blaster fire, so the enemy were closing in from behind to. They had no choice he could see but to take the opportunity as it was and run for it.

oOo

The streets were a mess, which was not making the evacuation any easier. On the bright side, the tanks moving had allowed reinforcements to land easily, and now the battered column of brown marked troops was mixed with those in blue and had a spattering of AT-TE's tagging along for support. Up ahead Rex could see a dozen AT-RTs searching for signs of ambush or traps. There had been a few mines, but after those were cleared nothing. It seemed like General Skywalker had been right, the tanks had cleared out in a hurry.

Suddenly, he heard a cry and a thud behind him. He turned, but already knew what he would see. Another Twilek had fallen to the ground, groaning, finally overcome by days of stress, her injuries, and her age. Rex had very little experience with how to deal with such things, or even with civilians in general. He couldn't so much as guess how old she was, besides very, but he could guess they wouldn't be able to handle the clone method of dealing with such exhaustion.

All around him scores of brown armored clones were leaning on blue ones, hobbling along despite injury and being at their energy's end. One to his right had an arm blow off by the laser weapons of the tan troopers pursuing them, while another to his right had a wad of bandages wrapped around a missing eye, but still they persevered and moved on regardless. It was a sight that filled his heart with pride in his brothers. Even after all they suffered through, the clone troopers continued on unbowed.

The civilians on the other hand weren't taking it so well. It wasn't something he could really understand, given his entire life had been dedicated to warfare and learning about it. He understood, mentally, that there were people that neither wanted any part of defending their homes nor were they capable of it, but it was more of something he had been taught than something he had ever truly come to terms with. He simply couldn't get into the mindset of someone like that old women, who glanced around fearfully as she was gently pulled up by a nearby clone trooper.

What did they do with their lives? Where was their purpose? He had been born, raised, and trained knowing exactly why. To defend the republic. It was something he had never questioned and the regiment of training, fighting and winning made it feel like his life had meaning, a greater purpose. He didn't know what he would do with himself if there wasn't this war to fight and couldn't understand how someone would live without such a thing to guide them, or would even want to for that matter. Didn't the woman get angry when their family was attacked, when her fellow Twilek had been killed like he would if his brothers were? Why didn't she fight back?

This concept of "civilian", it was something drilled into him at an early age as something that must be protected, but until now he couldn't truly grasp the concept. He and that Twilek lived in entirely different worlds, and he didn't think no matter how many years he lived he would ever understand her. Now General Skywalker, on the other hand, seemed to know exactly what to do.

The Jedi had allowed for the more tired and injured and weak refugees to ride in or on the AT-TEs. This was rather limiting in combat, which luckily they had not encountered since the disengagement earlier, but the Jedi had cited morale as an overriding factor that should allow it. It seemed he had been right, and the mood had brightened among the Twileks once they were allowed to start riding. The kids especially loved it, even though there wasn't enough room for them all. Seeing them smile did make Rex feel better about the situation, so perhaps when this was all over, he would try and talk to the Jedi about it. He certainly seemed to have some insights into the matter.

As they closed in on the front gate, or rather the rubble that had once been the front gate and wall, Rex could see the Jedi general get increasingly tense, just as Rex himself got increasingly worried. There were no ambushed, no more traps, and the gunships strafing the retreating army reported they had almost finished packing up their tanks into massive dropships, some of which had already departed for orbit. In the hour-long slog since their initial drop and skirmish there had been nothing. What exactly was the enemy up to?

When they finally got within sight of the bridge, he had his answer. Most of the horizon was taken up by the massive troop transports dedicated to evacuating the tanks, but the bridge, and what was on it, was clearly visible nonetheless. Rex instinctively ducked as the hissing of a tank shell preempted its nearby impact, but the vehicle itself was nowhere in sight. By altering the settings of his visor, he could see the vehicle, several kilometers off near the dropships.

It and several others were taking inaccurate potshots at the survivors as they waited to be loaded, and the reason for a lack of a concerted response was the same reason none of them were attempting to cross the bridge and escape the ever-encroaching army at their backs. The thing he had immediately spotted was a minefield. The bridge was absolutely coated with the things, explaining the lack of any earlier. Many looked professional, some looked thrown together, and some he doubted even worked.

This was a huge problem. While they had managed to land some tanks, all of which were already taking up rearguard positions and ushering out and off their passengers, very few had made it through the combined AA fields of the warships, ground batteries, and tanks. The armor clad clone troopers were vastly outnumbered by the battered convoy of refugees, even as the few remaining LAATs offloaded their remaining cargo in preparation for what is to come.

The crowd caught on to the halt in the convoy and the actions of the tanks, and increasingly loud worried chattering had broken out across the mass of Twilek. They didn't know what was going on, but it was clear even from Rex's rudimentary knowledge of civilians at the rate things were going they would panic soon, and then things would get ugly. General Skywalker quickly strode over and, voice low, started talking to Rex and the nearby Keeli.

"Do you think it would be safe for me to lift the mines?" He asked, glancing furtively around. The crowd, which he was watching, was growing more restless by the second, so whatever they did they had to do it quick. Rex couldn't tell if the General's suggestion had any merit at this distance, but Keeli on the other hand seemed to have an idea of the situation. "No sir" the clone started, glancing a bit more closely at the devices as he did so. "Actually hold on a second, can you-"without needing to finish, one of the AT-RT pilots walked over and handed him the macrobinoculars he was using. "Thanks." Keeli leaned in a bit more before sighting. "Definitely not, the things are bolted on. I've seen my fair share of these kinds of traps over the last few days and trying to move them without working on them first will definitely set them off."

Anakin's face pinched, frustration plainly visible. "We don't have much time. How fast do you think they can be disarmed?" Keeli seemed surprised by the question, and a sinking feeling began to form in Rex's gut. "Sir, what makes you think they even CAN be disarmed? From my experience with these monsters they usually don't hesitate to leave that option in, and with how haphazard some of the devices are that may not even have been a possibility if they had wanted to."

The Jedi scoffed. "They are humans Keeli, not droids. They would never sacrifice so many of their own troops like this, especially since we spotted a high-ranking officer with the ones behind us. They would be trapped if they damaged the bridge to much and could never evacuate in time." Keeli seemed to consider this, glancing at Rex as he did so. A silent conversation passed between them in that brief moment. Neither was so certain, having seen the same light of fanaticism in their enemy's eyes, but there was no other way out for the Twilek's. "I'll get on it immediately, sir." Keeli eventually replied.

As Keeli jogged over to the bridge, a few handpicked clones following him Rex turned and began to head towards the AT-TEs. There were six of them, and while they would provide some cover, they wouldn't provide nearly enough for all the clones, and certainly couldn't protect the mass of civilians from the upcoming skirmish.. Luckily General Skywalker seemed to have realized this and began floating over piles of rubble to give the 501st and Keeli's battered survivors what cover he could. The dozen AT-RTs had begun to spread out as far from the main mass of infantry and Twilek's to lower the effect said mass had on their mobility, something that was alleviated a bit once the refugees finished streaming out of the entrance and into the area near the bridge as fast as they could.

As the rubble barricade reached chest height their tan pursuers at last arrived. The first sight he had of them was a single red beam nearly taking the General's head off. The first trooper had sprinted ahead of the rest, sighted, and fired faster than any of them could react, and seconds later the rest of his friends began to follow. Even as the clones around him began to return fire a tide of tan uniforms began flowing around the wall blocking the ramp they had descended just minutes earlier.

The enemy had no cover from their blasters, but they didn't seem to care. The first few squads were cut down easily enough but the combined fire of the infantry and the tanks, but their enemy wasn't stupid. There was a stutter in the flow of troops, likely the enemy reorganizing behind said walls, and then the flow resumed. This time though, the front runners were screening a group with missile launchers.

The launchers made it to various rubble piles and knelt before the clones could realize what happening. The first rocket went wide, but the next three impacted the central AT-TE, sending it crashing to the ground in a cloud of smoke, crushing several clones to slow to move beneath it. By that point the flow of troopers had stopped, and it was easy to see why. The stutter had allowed troops lagging behind to catch up, including the ones carrying heavy weapons.

The first sign Rex had of what was to come was an eerie whistling sound before a something slammed down in front of the clone lines, causing an that explosion sent clouds of loose soil into the air. After the second impact, Rex recognized the mortar for what it was instantly. More began to add their shots from behind the wall and soon a heavy rain of munitions was impacting the dug in clone troopers. Their rudimentary barricades were useless against indirect fire weapons and soon the mortar teams found their marks.

A heeling like a hammerblow impacted Rex and suddenly the world was a whirl of colors and sights before his back hit something hard. His head felt like a rancor had stepped on it, and it took him a few moments to realize what must have happened. A mortar round had impacted near him and thrown him into one of the AT-TE's legs. As he used it as a brace to stand back up, he saw his brothers scattering. They were trying to spread out and fall back to the bridge, likely on the orders of General Skywalker, but in so doing had lifted the suppressive fire on the rocket troopers hiding in the rubble and those waiting behind the wall of the ramp.

A second AT-TE went down in flames, picked off by the rocket troopers who had hopped in and out of cover in a very practiced looking motion. While the return fire continued from the retreating clone troops it was sporadic and interrupted by the constant hail of mortar shells. Only the AR-RTs and AT-TEs could keep up reliable counterfire as they to moved towards the bridge, and so the enemy targeted them.

As Rex began to limp towards his unit, slowly gaining steam and regaining proper use of his leg the AT-TE he had been leaning on exploded, knocking him back over. As he rolled back to his feet he could see the tan troops once more flowing forwards, this time with a couple heavy weapons systems set up to cover them. Massive plumes of dirt erupted in their ranks, limbs and bodies flying as the mass drivers of the tanks impacted the tan troopers yet still they came on. Most would dash into craters and into piles of rubble while others moved on searching for other cover before returning fire but in all cases they advanced and attacked regardless of the blasterfire coming their way.

Some of the heavy weapons were the explosive slugthrowers he had seen on the tanks from earlier. Their portable form they had large physical shields blocking incoming fire and were tripod mounted. Other weapons mounts were similar to the one that had just taken out the AT-TE and resembled massively upscaled versions of the tan trooper's blasters on even larger tripods than the slugthrowers. Both were trying to focus down the AT-RTs and AT-TE's and getting hammered for their troubles, giving Rex the time to regroup with his comrades.

As his legs shook off enough of their damage to enter a jog he saw General Skywalker try to flag him down. The Jedi was standing next to Keeli and was barely visible through the mass of Twileks. They had began forming up around the bridge as the enemy got ever closer in a disorganized crowd, making it a great deal of trouble to reach them. Shouldering and lightly sidestepping through the mass of bodies he saw Keeli and a squad of tense clone troopers kneeling next to the General. There was about 5 meters between the bridge and the mass of Twilek, likely due to what was occurring on it.

Keeli and his troopers were several meters down the bridge now, with several squads carefully carrying dismantled explosives to the edge of the cliff and tossing them off. The tense face of the Jedi and the posture of the clones only mirrored what was already obvious to all involved; they weren't disarming the explosives nearly fast enough. At this rate the army would be upon them long before the bridge was cleared for use, though he wondered why the tan soldiers had yet to blow it.

The thought stuck with him. It would have been much more efficient to blow it and leave, ensuring escape was impossible. Its not like the enemy was incompetent despite their obviously twisted mindset, so why then did they leave the bridge in place? The only ones who were even left to benefit were the GAR, who were the enemy of the tan troopers, and the troops behind him.

The thought froze him in place. The only thing they could still try to do was shorten the battle to ensure the voidwar didn't progress to the point reinforcements could stop the ones still on the ground. The troops behind him had seen previously present Jedi General, and the ones in who had departed already seen General Skywalker. A decapitation strike would disorganize their forces and allow for a quicker fight, and even the Jedi had thought it was possible to use his powers to help with the explosives.

General Skywalker was saying something to him, but the world had become numb and he couldn't hear it. Rex spun around and desperately scanned the enemy positions. He saw not one, but three separate individuals at the back of the incoming enemy ranks holding devices that looked similar to a macrobinocular. They had been waiting for confirmation on the Jedi's position, just as he had come to suspect.

"EVERYONE MOVE, IT'S A TRAP!" There was a moment of confusion on the Jedi's face even as he and everyone else threw themselves away from the explosives. His eyes caught something over Rex's shoulder and widened in realization before everything turned to fire.

Rex had enough distance between him and the explosives that he was only nocked back slightly, but as he felt the ground give way beneath his feet he knew that it was a death sentence regardless. There had been enough explosives to destroy the bridge several times over, so now he, his brothers and its pieces were hurtling towards the floor in the aftermath of the explosion. Casting his eyes about he spotted the Jedi several feet above him, seemingly unconscious and with a meter long piece of jagged metal stuck through his gut.

Rex looked down, causing his body to start slowly spinning as he did so. The bottom of the canyon was far off still, but unless they did something soon they would be in big trouble. He could probably save himself given how close some of those outcropps looked, but the other clones didn't look to be in any shape to save themselves. Some where just scorched, others had large shrapnel wounds similar to general Skywalker, and some had been unfortunate enough to be ignited by the explosion. What they needed was a miracle, and the Jedi was pretty good at making those.

"General Skywalker, WAKE UP!" the Jedi seemed to stir, but didn't move. "GENERAL SKYWALKER!" Rex glanced down again, noting with increasing panic that the floor was looking awfully close at this point. He glanced back up, mind running through what else he could possibly do before Keeli took the initiative and threw one of his pistols hard enough that when it slammed into the Jedi's head he too started spinning. As the General blinked awake Rex came to the conclusion that sometimes the simplest solutions were the best.

The Jedi quickly glanced around and then down, eyes widening as he threw out both hands. He, the clones, and the rubble came to a sudden halt less than a meter above the canyon floor. They hung, suspended for a moment before hitting the floor as the Jedi lost concentration. Rex managed to land on his feet and quickly ran over to check on the General.

He was clutching at the piece of shrapnel lodged in his midsection and just as Rex arrived managed to yank it out. The Jedi tried to rise to his feet, swaying as he did so before starting to fall back over. Rex managed to catch him before he hit the ground and began easing him into a sitting position. "We need to-" Rex cut the jedi off immediately. "We can't do anything from here sir. Look around." He said, gesturing to the wounded clones around him. One was jogging over with some bacta and a synth skin dispenser he noted, while he saw Keeli some feet away shifting through some rubble, likely looking for his other gun. "The battle is over for us sir, one way or another.

Rex could see a flash of pain go through the Jedi's eyes as he said that, and the stubborn fool actually tried to get up again before falling back, wincing. "Sir" Rex began, "if you can't even notice that you are partially on fire" he said, before reaching out and extinguishing part of the Jedi's hair "then you are in no condition to fight. Get some rest and leave everything to the others."

The Jedi visibly drooped, struggling to say something before finally slumping back to let the clone with the medical supplies to begin working on him. He could hear the crunch of boots behind him and turned to see the other clone captain looming over his shoulder. "That was some fine work with the pistol" Rex opened. "Probably saved the lot of us with it."

The clone captain let out a bark of laughter before replying. "This gun had saved my life at least a hundred times at this point, so its only fitting it would do so even now. Definitely never letting this thing out of my sight again." Keeli said, hefting the gun proudly like one would a trophy. "I'm almost certain its lucky." There was a silence for a few seconds, one that Keeli eventually decided to breach after sitting down on a large piece of metal that had at one point made up the bridge. "So then, what now?"

Rex considered the question, before looking back up. There was no way they were getting out of here before it was finished, one way or another. "For now, we get some rest. The battle is over for us." Keeli seemed to consider that before giving a short laugh and pulling off his helmet. "You know, its only been a couple days, but it feels like its been so very long we've been fighting these guys. I…I'm so tired after it, and we're probably going to have to do it again aren't we?"

As he said this Rex walked over to him and sat down on a nearby rock. "I definitely wouldn't mind some leave after this." He began. "I don't think I ever properly introduced myself. My designation is CT-7567, captain of the 501st clone legion, but everyone calls me Rex." He said, sticking out his hand. "Keeli stared at it for a couple seconds before giving a wistful smile grasping it with his own. "I'm Keeli, from…well it doesn't matter anymore after today. We'll probably get folded into your unit with our losses."

Rex shook the hand, probably a bit harder than he needed too. "Then in that case its good to have you aboard. Might want to start coming up with excuses for why you threw a pistol at your soon to be superior officer though." Keeli blinked and let out a laugh, a genuine smile asserting itself on his face. "He seems like the sort exciting things happen to, though hopefully not for a while." Rex mirrored his grin, glad to see his plan to improve everyone's spirits beginning to work. He glanced around and saw the other brown armored clones beginning to lean in. "Oh, you have no idea!" He began, shaking his head as he saw his brothers begin to lean in. "Once we went to this place called Christophsis, and…"

The battle for Ryloth would rage for several hours yet. The Imperium, having trapped and destroyed that last pocket of resistance on the planet, would be forced to make a quick retreat soon after and fail to evacuate many of the troopers who had cut themselves off in time. Those troops would fight a brutal yet inevitably short campaign against the troops landed by the Acclamators before being killed to the last. Even as this was going on a search began for survivors, scouring the planet in all manner of vehicles to see if any yet lived. Exactly thirty minutes after the fighting stopped an LAAT gunship would enter the canyon under the guidance of a Togruta Padawan in search of a missing General. They would find that Jedi slumped over a piece of rubble surrounded by a circle of laughing clones.

**Ryloth Chapter-End**

**So that's Ryloth. I'll type up a short Battle Report soon and upload it as I intend to after all full chapters. It will be an Omniscient narrator type and go into the details of the campaign. After that will be the second full chapter, this time revolving around Orks. They, as always, are the best to write. **


	6. Battle of Ryloth: After Action Report

**AN: And here is the AAR. Next up is orks vs GAR. Onto comments:**

**Code Viper: Ironically, the GAR is also fairly similar to the WW2 Japanese. If you ever watched the clone wars, you probably saw the Jedi fake surrender a lot to win. That's called Perfidy, and it's a war crime. A serious one at that, because the next time someone sees a surrender, they are less and less likely to accept it because they remember the last time. It is coincidentally one of the Japanese armies favorite warcrimes during ww2, as they would often fake surrender and walk over hiding a live grenade on them or open fire when close and such. **

**TheSpawn117: The mandos are humans and xenos working together under one banner in harmony. According to the deathwatch, this is the absolute worst form of heresy, and usually the only thing that will get them all in one place. **

**AlsoSprachOdin: Thanks for the grammar stuff, as mentioned I don't have a beta or writing degree so it's not the best. Anyways, on numbers that's one of the things I've been struggling with. 40k is usually pretty good with numbers. Crusades are usually easily in the billions and most battles are reasonably large. The battle for amarah prime for example had 220 million imperial combatants, and that was a battle in the middle of nowhere. Star wars however is…less good. You see, the cannon GAR is super tiny. Its 3 million strong in legends and gets an additional 5 million in cannon for a possible total of 8 million. That's…incredibly small on a galactic scale. Even using the usual SW argument of "units=lots of clone not one" in versus debates (and ignoring all the times the words clone troopers were attached to those numbers) even if I assume each clone was actually a clone legion you only get around 70 billion clones. That's still very small by 40k standards. Ryloth in cannon is a great example of this. We see the siege of the capitol and the forces there are…not great. There were a single digit number of tanks and maybe 30 Twilek resistance guys. For the capitol city of the Twilek homeworld. We see what other towns look like in earlier episodes, but the words "sparsely populated" seem to barely cover it. Thus, for any chance even with a really big SW fleet I had to use a rather battered force rather than say what they threw at similar annoyances like the Tau. Otherwise it wouldn't be a battle at all, it would be the imperials just kind of sitting there and laughing at the GAR. But yeah Ryloth in particular has a very small population, and apparently was never able to protect itself accordingly from endless pirate raids. I've made another similar comment in the actual AAR. Oh, and if you see rapid updates after I upload this those are the grammatical corrections you saw. And on drafting, who said hadn't? Of course training and arming takes a bit, but a month or two to teach someone how to shoot straight is all you really need for conscripts. **

**Battle of Ryloth After Action Report**

Date

5-7 Day post convergence

Location

Ryloth, Segmentum Ultima

Combatants

The Confederacy of Independent Systems (CIS) The Imperium of Man (IOM)

The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Twilek Resistance

Commanders and Leaders

CIS: Emir Wat Tambor (POW), Captain Mar Tuuk (KIA), TA-175 (KIA), TX-20 (KIA)

IOM: General Al'rahem II (WIA) (Tallarn 3rd Infantry Regiment), Colonel Patton (Minervan 63rd Tank Legion), Colonel Anastasia (Valhallan 97th Artillery Regiment), Captain 11894 (Kreig 33rd Siege Regiment), Admiral Kathis Steten

GAR: General Anakin Skywalker (WIA) (501st clone legion), Commander Ahsoka Tano (501st clone legion), Captain Rex (501st clone legion), Admiral Wulf Yularen, Captain Keeli, General Ima-gun Di (KIA), Admiral Dao (KIA)

Twilek Resistance: Cham Syndulla (KIA)

Strength

CIS: 1 Lucrehulk-class Battleship, 6 Munificent-class star frigates, 50 C-9979 Landing Craft, 72 shuttles, 1716 Vulture Droids, 1,500 troop carriers, 550 MTTs, 6250 ATTs, 1,229,600 assorted battle droids

IOM: 1 dominator-class cruiser, 2 defiant-class light cruisers and air wings, 2 dauntless-class light cruisers, 1 Turbulent-class heavy frigate, 3 sword class frigates, 3 firestorm-class frigates, 12 cobra-class destroyers, 75,000 Tallarn desert specialists and supporting chimera/tauros, 423 death corps infantrymen, 5000 Tallarn pattern sentinels, 500 hellhounds, 4,250 Leman Russ battle tanks, 1,300 salamanders, 40 Macharius heavy tanks, 15 Ragnaroks, 3 Stormlords, 1 Stormblade, 1 Baneblade, 1500 Hydra AA tanks, 2100 Basilisks, and assorted vehicle crews and support staff.

GAR: 48 Consular-class frigates, 30 Arquitens-class light cruisers, 20 Dreadnaught-class heavy cruisers, 16 victory-class star destroyers, 8 Venator-class star destroyers, 3 Procurator-class battlecruisers, 1 praetor-class battlecruiser, 10 Acclamator-class assault ships, 1920 Torrent starfighters, Y-wings, 640,000 clone troopers, 1120 LAATs, 672 AT-TEs, 3200 speeder bikes, AT-RTs.

Twilek Resistance: 15,000 civilian militiamen

Casualties and Losses

CIS: Total

GAR: 48 Consular-class cruisers, 17 Arquitens-class light cruisers, 8 dreadnaught-class heavy cruisers, 5 victory-class star destroyers, 3 venator-class star destroyers, 1 procurator-class battlecruiser, 4 Acclamator-class Assault ships, 827 torrent starfighters, heavy Y-wing losses, 185 AT-TEs, 1280 speeder bikes, 577 LAATs, most of Keeli's forces, 106,220 clone troopers.

IOM: 1 Baneblade, 1 Stormblade, 7 Ragnaroks, 1 Turbulent-class heavy frigate, 5 cobra-class destroyers, 2 firestorm-class frigates, 1 sword-class frigate, heavy mauling to the rest of the fleet, 217 Leman Russ MBTs, 300 death corps infantrymen, 25,000 Tallarn infantrymen.

Twilek Resistance: Total

Battle Summary

The battle of Ryloth began several days after the IOM discovered it and dispatched a heavily damaged nearby taskforce to deal with it at the hands of the CIS. Emir Wat Tambor sought treasure allegedly held by the Twilek people and as such decided to invade the world. The planet was lightly garrisoned and due to millennia of pirate raids and emigration had a very small population, leading to the Emir believing a quick and easy victory was to follow. Even the quick response and reinforcements in the form of Admiral Dao's pair of nearby venator-class star destroyers was unable to make up for the lack of a large garrison, and the first 4,000 casualties were soon acquired on the GAR's side when said ships were destroyed. The Forces of the CIS under Emir Tambor quickly began descending to the surface in an attempt to occupy Ryloth, with the principle spaceport of Lessu being the primary goal, but before the majority of the force had yet to be disembarked when the Imperial military elements finally arrived. The arrival was not perfect, and they missed the estimated Mandevelle point by nearly a million kilometers and the last heavy escort missed it by even more, ending up in the nearby star due to the warp conditions and damage sustained by the near constant operations most imperial forces had been experiencing since the fall of Cadia. While the loss of the ship and the two superheavy tanks it had been carrying was unfortunate, the rest of the fleet arrived together and were in close enough proximity to begin their assault.

Emir Tambor immediately fled to the surface, leaving command of the fleet and the landing of his war material in the hands of his more competent subordinate, Mar Tuuk. This move saved the Emir's life as the Imperial admiral, Kathis Steten, knew from experience most naval commanders preferred to command from the ship least likely to be destroyed, which in most cases was also the largest. Having correctly divined the location of the Nemoidian in charge of the fleet elements he quickly had the vessel destroyed with the cruiser's nova cannon, destroying a great deal of the total war materiel brought by Emir Tambor and allowing for the rest of the disoriented small CIS fleet to be mopped up with relative ease.

The nature of Ryloth upon observation caused the commanding officers of the IOM expedition to make a near fatal mistake. The population of Ryloth for a Xenos homeworld was extremely low, especially for a spacefaring one, and what cities were present were for the most part underdeveloped hovels. While the initial strikes and bombing runs managed to eliminate the majority of the population in said cities and in the shallower caves, it was determined that many Twileks resided deep underground. While this was not in itself a problem that could not be dealt with via extensive orbital bombardment, it was decided that it was likely the reason so little was put into the world's defenses was that instead the Xenos had built exterminatus proof bunkers deep below the surface where the select elites could survive unnoticed while the rest of their species perished as sacrificial shields. Indeed, such bunkers had cost imperial forces the opportunity to kill several high-ranking Tau military officials during their second large scale conflict with said Xenos empire. Mindful of the fact that the world had been invaded meant they likely had an inbound retribution fleet, the expedition's high command decided to commit to a hurried invasion into the depths of the world to ensure no nook or cranny was missed. At the same time, it was decided that they may as well extract the likely VIP in charge of the CIS operation they predicted had landed ahead of the voidwar as they were forced to invade the planet regardless.

The imperial forces here split mostly into three components, with the entirety of the Valhallan 97th committing to a siege of the planetary capitol of Lessu in order to capture Emir Tambor while the majority of the Tallarn 3rd infantry sought the surviving Twileks in the main continent's largest tunnel system. Portions of the Minervan 63rd guarded the Valhallans as they began what would become a three-day artillery barrage while elements of the Tallarn 3rd and the rest of the Minervan tank legion would seek out and destroy any smaller tunnel systems not cleared by the opening bombardment, of which few remained. Those elements would link up with the main besieging force around Lessu after their duties were completed and would later provide infantry support for the 63rd after it began its advance into the city.

While the Tallarn 3rd's lightening advance through the tunnel system was a miracle predicated by their extensive tunnel fighting experience and a combination of the small garrison size and low surviving number of combat capable Twileks, the delays in the taking of Lessu lay entirely at the feet of Mechanicus doctrine. Refusing to allow the imperial guard regiments to use the Xenotech light bridge, the enginseers of the guard instead threw together one of questionable quality based upon the material they had salvaged from their previous assignment. This engineering project did not go smoothly, and the delay would cost them the time they needed to exfiltrate. Had the imperial forces used the light bridge they could have flanked the Twileks through the tunnels connected to Ryloth and likely left not long before the GAR forces arrived, but the naval forces grievously overestimated how long they had before GAR reinforcements would arrive, and thusly the Mechanicus was allowed to delay military operations for religious purposes.

On the third day of the siege the imperium at last made its breakthroughs. In the early hours of the morning the final Twilek stronghold was identified and assaulted, forcing the retreat of all survivors towards Lessu and resulting in the death of the commanding officer of GAR forces on world at the time, while simultaneously resulting in heavy injury to the Tallarn general directing forces, disabling him for the rest of the campaign. Seven hours later the Mechanicus at last finished their bridge, and the assault on Lessu began. It was a relatively swift siege and ended in under two hours due to a combination of sustained imperial bombardment leading up to it and the superiority of the armored elements on the imperial side, notably the presence of the three superheavy tanks presented a near insurmountable obstacle for the battered and already heavy damaged CIS remnant. During the assault the evacuation had already been underway by order of the paranoid general. This was due to the escalating series of misfortunate events that he had experienced in the decades he had fought pre and post Cadia, and even though estimates placed the incoming relief fleet weeks or more away if it arrived at all many imperial commanders had long since learned what should and would happen were entirely different things.

This decision would save the majority of IOM assets. When the bombardment ceased at approximately 5AM local time and as it did the heavy guns of the Artillery regiment began to pack up and return to orbit. It was a process that was hurried and made much easier by the extensive combat losses undertaken during their previous engagement with tyranid forces, but still took many hours. Indeed, the evacuation of the second regiment, the tank regiment, had not even begun once the GAR relief fleet entered the system. It would only be due to a series of environmental and mission factors as well as several doctrinal mistakes that allowed for as many of the ground forces to be salvaged as were.

While the disposition and tactics of the ground forces deployed by the IOM in this engagement had been carefully analyzed and reported to the commanders of the relief force, those of the naval elements had not been due to the lack of surviving GAR naval forces in system after the loss of Admiral Dao's fleet. Thusly, while countermeasures had been theorized and prepared while en-route for the Imperial Guard elements, the navy was a foe they were fully unprepared for. For countless millennia carrier doctrine had dominated in the galaxy far far away, leading to battlecarriers being the most common kind of capitol ship. It was rare to find a large vessel at any point of the timeline with some degree of starfighter launching capability at this time, and as a result it was often starfighters that decided the fate of a battle. For the Imperial Navy, it was quite the opposite. The shields, point defense, and armored hides of its warships had long since evolved to the point that many high-ranking admirals questioned the point of even having carriers at all, a split that had caused several fleet battles in the past. The doctrine had instead evolved around the designs and ideals of the big gun group and much of the IN's naval tactics revolved around capital ships engaging in long range slugging matches in various different ways and formations. The only groups ever able to sufficiently challenge the IN enough to get the doctrine reconsidered were the Aeldari with their vastly superior wings of voidcraft and the Tyranids. The Eldar were a group that the IN could never match in fighter combat, and thus saturation point defense fire of thousands of kilometers was the standard tactic for them. The ever-escalating number of Tyranids however was the larger issue, and by the end of m41 the Great Devourer was regularly deploying millions of destroyer and up class vessels for singular battles, something that the IN had no real way to cope with beyond hoping they could kill enough to make a difference before the Tyranids closed to knife fighting range.

From these two deadly foes the IN refined their point defense and anti-starfighter tactics to a near art form, something that put them at a great advantage against the GAR forces that over relied on them. Additionally, the majority of ships present on the side of the GAR were relics of the past era of disarmament and extremely small, barely rating above heavy starfighters by the standards of the IOM. Despite this, the numerical advantage was to much for the IN to overcome, and so it was decided within minutes of contact that the voidwar was lost and the retreat was called. The war thus for the IN became about delaying the enemy as long as possible to recover as many ground assets as could be salvaged before fleeing. That objective was complicated by the quick engagement of their capitol vessels by Wulf Yularen, who sought to break the blockade and recover any surviving Twileks. Admiral Kathis Steten on the IN side saw it as an attempt to force off the fleet so they could bombard the ground assets freely now that so little possibility for collateral damage remained and interpreting it as likely a human clone commanded the fleet respected the tactic, even if it was in defense of an Xenos world.

The initial republic void engagement went poorly due to the time constraint they were under. In a normal battle Admiral Yularen could have exploited his carrier doctrine's flexibility to feel out the enemy fleet and engage at extreme ranges that would better allow him to use his lighter vessels maneuverability, providing a favorable hit and run pace to the fight that would maximize his fleets strengths while minimizing his opponents. However, this was a rescue mission, one with the timer in the red at that, and thus he and General Anakin Skywalker were forced to commit their forces to a frontal assault that was overly costly and played to the brawling methods proffered by the IN. This put the skirmishing vessels that served as the fleet's vanguard in an extremely disadvantageous position where they were even less effective than they already would have been in the face of IN doctrine and thusly they suffered extremely heavy casualties. When the heavier fleet elements came into play the engagement became more even, but still suffered from playing to the enemies favored playbook.

It was in this phase that the vast majority of Clone casualties were inflicted. This early in the war due to the fast-responding nature of the republic it was common for star destroyers to hold both support vehicles and the clones that used them, usually about 2000 troopers in total. That meant that every lost capitol ship lost the GAR 2000 of the clone troopers meant for the siege. The Dominator-class cruiser claimed the vast majority of those casualties with its nova cannon taking out 4 Acclamator-class assault ships with a grav-shell, for a total of 64,000 casualties which would make up the vast majority of actual GAR losses in the battle. The shot had been intended for the flagship of the GAR fleet, but excessive damage during the previous battles that had not been treated due to a lack of time in a fleet yard had caused the inertial compensators to be near inoperable and thrown the shot off, allowing for the flagship to evade it narrowly via maneuvering. In a normal fleet battle such a kill count would be unlikely, but GAR naval doctrine favored much tighter formations than those viewed as safe by the inhabitants of the 41st millennia, allowing for the occurrence. The Cruiser then charged the flagship, hoping to draw capitol vessels from the main melee to aid in the evacuation. Upon realizing this, GAR command staff also realized it also likely meant the Twilek survivors had very little time remaining, forcing them to rush what troops they could in LAATs to the surface, taking further casualties in the process.

On the surface, all but a small fraction of the surviving tanks had already reached the embarkation point and began to leave. The remaining contingent was headed by one of the Stormlord heavy tanks and was charged with stopping the Twileks from entering the city by waiting for them at the exit to the tunnel they were using. General Skywalker thusly ordered his troops to deploy around that area and try to break through to allow the Twileks to escape the Tallarn regiment pursuing them. This was a move made out of desperation and resulted in heavy casualties during the landings. However, due to the air superiority gained by all IOM air elements being busy in orbit they were able to force a foothold eventually and were joined by the ragged survivors of General Ima Gun-di's command led by the exhausted captain Keeli. It would be over an hour until the ensuing stalemate was broken.

As the infantry regiment on the heels of the GAR forces and the Twileks grew worryingly close General Skywalker decided to fake an attack on the bridge. It was risky, as if it worked too well they would have no way to evacuate any of the civilians in time, but they needed to break out before they were trapped in a pincer and this was the only way he could see to do that. The Vulcan megabolter of the Stormlord was simply to powerful to overcome without heavy armor, something he could not obtain in sufficient quantities until the blockade was broken. The fake attack by LAATs was interpreted as the GAR having given up on saving the Twileks due to their situation and thus switching over to trying to kill as many retreating imperials as possible by the surviving officers of the IOM forces, and due to the more fanatical officer in command being taken out of commission via wounding earlier the more level headed colonel of the Minervan tank legion made the call of pull back and save what tanks they could instead of possibly sacrificing all remaining units to ensure the missions completed as the Tallarn general would have.

The Tank Legion retreated quickly due to their mechanized nature, allowing attached infantry to ride on their hulls as they did so. The GAR advance towards assumed safety was much less speedy, taking several hours to reach the bridge due to the exhaustion, wounds, and often age of the surviving Twileks. This allowed the Minervan Tank Legionary engineers and sappers to cover the bridge in charges, preventing any forward advance. The initial imperial plan was to pin them in place with the explosives so the Tallarn regiment could catch up while the tanks evacuated, which worked.

Unfortunately for the Imperials, the void war went exceedingly bad for them around this point. The weight of numbers had begun to show, and losses were quickly mounting. While the hardiness of imperial vessels insured many survived much longer than the GAR equivalent would have, they often did so as burning husks, utterly unfit for combat. One by one the ships were being forced to jump out or perish, leading the Tallarn forces to make a desperate assault against the reaming GAR forces. It had originally been assumed that should they fail the now exposed forces could be dealt with by orbital bombardment, but the voidwar had made that an impossibility. They used primarily mortars and missile launchers to attempt to take down the armor that had survived the dangerous flight to the ground, but he majority of said explosives were deflected by the force powers of Anakin Skywalker.

Sheer weight of numbers began to show though, and the focusing of said Jedi by the lasguns of the Tallarn infantry began to hold more and more of his attention, thus letting increasing numbers of rockets and mortar rounds through. As it became obvious the situation was untenable the Jedi moved back to the explosives where Keeli and a handpicked squad were attempting to disarm them. He sought to in some way help with his abilities whilst holding his increasingly strained focus mostly on the incoming explosive rounds. One of his captains thus was the one to realize that the enemy may have held back on detonating them in order to catch the Jedi in the blast, as the Jedi's mind was rather stretched at this point. The Tallarn troops, now in charge of the ground battle, had switched to that idea out of fear that some act of witchery could deny them their objective now that the fallback of orbital bombardment was lost. Not the most familiar with psykers due to being more superstitious and religious than the average regiment, they only knew of the ones they had fought, and thus did not know that holding back could be risky as technomancy is a psychic discipline. They had encountered heretic and Xenos psykers capable of mass teleportation, illusions, and other such acts though, and thus decided to sacrifice their escape route to ensure the job was done.

The bridge had been rigged with many charges, including several melta variants. The only reason anyone nearby survived was Rex's quick thinking allowing him to alert the Jedi general, who then in turn shielded the surrounding clone troopers from the blast which would have killed them. The blast was powerful enough to collapse the cliff face around the bridge as well as shatter the bridge along its entire length, throwing all nearby clones into the ravine and knocking the Jedi General unconscious. Captain Keeli managed to awaken him near the bottom and thus prevent the deaths of his men, but alone and without Jedi shielding from the hail of explosives the rest of the clones and Twileks quickly perished beneath the Tallarn onslaught. The bridge's collapse was not without consequence for the imperials though. Of the approximately 40,000 Tallarn guardsmen to enter the caves, only 15,000 could be evacuated in the time before the last ship was made to flee. Approximately 25,000 were forced to be left behind and were lost to the enraged clone legions. While they fought with the fury of willing martyrs, they lacked any air or armored support in a mostly demolished city and thusly lost far more men then their attackers did.

With the siege over, the mop up began. Wrecked imperial equipment was collected for study, destroyed ships were boarded and surviving officers and crewmen were stunned and captured, and the planet was searched for pockets of survivors. There were several deep underground, but they were depressingly few. The Jedi general and his compatriots would be recovered from the ravine and join these efforts, and indeed would be the last to leave the world. They would spend several weeks setting up small encampments for survivors and would promise to return with aid but said aid would never materialize. The plight of Ryloth would be forgotten in the wake of what was to follow, but it would remain the first well documented battle between elements of the GAR and IOM, earning its place in the history books.

Outcome

CIS Defeat, Republic Tactical and military victory, IOM Strategic victory.

Consequences

Emir Wat Tambor is captured, leading to morale loss amongst the Separatist council and internal issues amongst the high-ranking officials of the Techno Union. While morale is strengthened among the general populace of the Republic due to a greatly sanitized version of events, military morale continues to plummet. The AARs distributed to naval high command cause a large schism over the use of small vessels and a discussion to take place over the usefulness of starfighters in the face of their ineffectuality against the imperium and devastating losses. The writings of a young naval officer from Eriadu gain some traction due to this change of political climate. While Twileks as people exist in great enough number across the galaxy to sustain their population, much of their culture dies with their homeworld's population, a fact exacerbated by the loss of many taken from said planet to Hutt space due to the assault of its new residents. As a whole the GAR while lower in morale is more determined to fight the IOM, having seen more evidence of its atrocities first hand, strengthening the war effort and encouraging recruitment. Additionally, a great deal of footage had been recorded over the course of the battle, allowing for in depth analysis of Imperial materiel and methods, insight that would be of much use in the upcoming battles. From that footage and the few captives gathered from wrecked vessels and starfighters the imperial lexicon starts to be put together. The 501st absorbs the survivors of Keeli's unit, who keep their browns as the Ryloth campaign badge. Captain Keeli himself would go on to become Anakin's second Lieutenant in the 501st, a voice of unorthodox strategies and opinions due to his experiences on Ryloth. This would become very useful in the months to come when the ever-expanding scope of GAR operations would quickly begin to tax the General's ability to handle alone.

The badly mauled fleet of Kathis Steten is forced to return to drydock for repair after the battle, delaying the transfer of Emir Wat Tambor until a courier vessel could be acquired. This delayed the transfer of the prisoner and thus arrival of vital information for several weeks, at which point the strategic situation had shifted significantly. The Tallarn 3rd with these new losses in the face of those already sustained by the Tyranids would return to their homeworld to seek replenishment, meaning their experience in combating the republic would not be available for use for some time. Several samples of CIS technology were acquired by the adepts of the machine god and would later be analyzed for insight into how to best destroy it. During said analysis more and more concern was expressed over the seemingly independent actions of the primitive combat protocols, concern that was echoed around the cult Mechanicus as more examples were collected across the galaxy.


	7. Arc 1: Balamak-Hulk

**AN: Well this chapter didn't want to come. I wrote it as a straight battle chapter several times, threw it out, rewrote it, and threw it out again and nausea. Well, in the end I decided nothing but battle chapters were boring, so this one has a slightly different plotline. Still rather blood soaked, 40k being 40k, but soldiers won't be the perspective holders for this one. No, instead it will be the civilians, PDF, and other poor victims we rarely get a good look at in these kinds of stories. As you may have guessed, this won't be going well for them. It's not the longest, but this felt like the appropriate endpoint for part one and I have made you guys wait far too long anyways. Anyways, onto the chapter.**

**Balamak, 20 days post convergence**

"Incredible." The blue Rodian breathed, crouching lower to better peer out the cockpit of his YL-2200 light freighter. In front on him was a behemoth of metal, spurts of white bonelike substances, and what looked worryingly like flesh. It the only way he could think of describing the ships was as if some giant had taken countless massive warships and mashed them together like clay, somehow getting them to flow around and into each other. "How big is it?' Beside him, sitting in the pilot seat, a gran in brown robes hummed as his three eyes examined the vessel's sensory equipment. "Big."

If it had been anyone else, the Rodian would have been insulted, but the pair had known each other for a very long time now and he had come to expect such an answer. Grek, the Rodian, had known Asekak ever since the Gran had decided that farming was more his thing and moved to the relative backwater planet of Balamak. Grek had come from Coruscant as a technician for the planets only real measure of Galactic importance, a supposedly vital holonet node, and had spent many a lonely year tending to it with a small group of other underpaid technicians. His megacity dwelling sensibilities had clashed horribly with the insular farming culture that the agriworld most preeminently featured, and he had never felt more isolated and miserable than before he had landed on Balamak. Even the other technicians were mostly locals, and he had spent many a lonely night craving any kind of friendship.

Then came Asekak. He had never gotten the full story on the Gran's retreat from core life, but they had first met when the increasing tensions leading up to the clone wars had led the movers and shakers of the world to call a small meeting to discuss creating a small self defense force in case of the worst. He had been invited to contribute technical knowledge, and the Gran had come as he was the only one on the planet to actually own a ship with a gun on it. Many hours later he had been assigned "senior communications expert" by the committee (or in basic, the person in charge of making sure people actually responded to their messages, if they even had something with which to receive them) and had been assigned to the planets only vessel. The force protecting the planet had grown since then, and they even boasted a trio of light cruisers and a smattering of star fighters, but the flagship of both the comms department and the fleet remained the freighter the Balamak self-defense force (or BSDF as it was usually called) had started in.

They had spent many a lonely night off from work doing volunteer patrols at the behest of worried farmers and commerce officials "patrolling" the outer reaches of the system, if it could be called that, and with their only other companion the occasional asteroid or very rarely smuggler trying to avoid customs they had little to do beyond talk. And talk they did. It had been hard at first, as the Gran was not the talkative sort. One-word answers and grunts had at first been something Grek had taken as sign of unfriendliness but had later been discovered to be simply the Gran's socially awkward nature at work. The more the talked, the more the Gran began to say. He had never become truly talkative, but Grek had come to be able to interpret the half answers of his now friend and extrapolate far more meaning from them than he had ever initially thought he could.

Weeks turned into months, and then years, and more and more they had exchanged cultural understanding. He had come to understand the ways of the more simplistic agricultural people that inhabited the lands he now called home, which began thawing the relationship on his side towards them as the respect that came from his new volunteer position did the same for them. Then one day after a long patrol to his surprise his coworkers invited him to come watch a game of Nuna-ball and he came to the sudden realization that he didn't feel lonely anymore. It was something he would always owe his friend for and made him cherish the taciturn Gran even more.

It had been years since that day, and he had never felt happier. In the year since the start of the war with the Confederacy the supreme chancellor, showing the same good judgement that had gained Grek's support long ago, had given incentives and payments to agriworlds to keep them in the republic and all worlds a small amount of funding to create small defense forces of their own. This allowed Grek and Asekak to quit their jobs and become fulltime BSDF employees. While the pay wasn't that good, even with his higher rank, Grek found his job as captain of the communications department well worth it and quite fulfilling. There had never really been any danger to dampen that feeling, until now that was.

The Gran had joined his silent staring at the…whatever it was, both trying to figure out where to even begin. No one had bothered the system since the beginning of the war, so maybe they had let their guard down a little bit. And maybe they had been celebrating favored teams nuna-ball win a bit too hard the day before this thing had appeared. Thusly, it had been the most frequently seen individual among the small number of smugglers to notice it instead of the ones who should have been actively looking.

X, as he liked to call himself, had never been a real problem. He was a "thing getter" as the locals so creatively called him, and relatively harmless. He had never caused any problems, charged fair prices, and besides his silly insistence on spy-vid like code names and meetings, going so far as to actively choose the most dingey and irritatingly remote establishments he knew for each meeting, was quite likeable. The locals usually looked the other way for him, and so had the BSDF after getting to know him. It was lucky they did, because if anything he said was true leaving this thing's arrival would be disastrous. Then again, he thought, glancing over the gun ports haphazardly sticking out of the monstrosity, some looking like they could fire rounds the size of his vessel, he likely would have figured that out sooner rather than later.

The way X told it; the vessels entrance had not been subtle. The smuggler had been lurking around the systems edges, for secrecy was vital he had insisted, earning three eye rolls from Asekak, when a massive portal made of "flashing lights and impossible colors" as he had described it had suddenly appeared and disappeared. There was no sign of it now besides the thing it had deposited. The smuggler claimed it was for his own security he had investigated the vessel without telling anyone, though Grek thought it was probably so he could loot anything he found without anyone noticing. What he found was much more dangerous than any amount of illicit substance he could have scavenged.

There hadn't been much time to interview him, so it was unlikely he had gotten the full picture. He had been roused from his slumber by a panicked looking militia trooper early in the morning, saying that X was demanding to see him. Doubting it was important, he had taken his time pulling on his uniform, freshening up, and meandering over to his "office" (a repurposed storehouse) where he answered the smugglers com request at last. When he did, he felt his heart fall through the floor.

Terrible didn't even begin to describe how the smuggler looked. The heavy robes the smuggler favored were torn to shreds, exposing the pale blue flesh of a Twilek. He had never actually seen X's face before, and he could barely do so now despite the situation due to the layers of fresh scars that now layered it. An eye was gone and so was his left arm. Not even his throat was spared, though the wound there looked more like some kind of large needle wound then the more animalistic wounds that covered the rest of him. A few looked like they were made by incredibly sharp claws, but most looked like they were made by either a jagged primitive blade or a blunt object. He had been a hunter in his youth, and even a mercenary for a couple foolish years, but never had he seen such a badly mauled person before. Keeping the previous days meals down, already difficult due to what he suspected was a hangover, suddenly became a challenge.

It was hard to get the story from X or even to understand his panicked babbling. From what he could decipher, when exploring the Twilek had come upon a sentient ball of teeth and subsequently had been attacked by it. When he had fought back with his blaster, a green brute had descended upon him, one that just wouldn't die. He had heard many, many others drawn to his stumbling fight and then panicked, fleeing into the hulk and getting lost. His memories got jumbled after that, but he had somehow given them the slip and made it back to his craft. When asked about how, his eyes seemed to get misty and he mumbled indistinctly and unsurely, before eventually coming back to into focus.

Despite repeated pleas to stay, X insisted he head for Coruscant. He wasn't scared, the smuggler insisted, he just needed to get help. Before he could get another word in the feed dropped, and a few minute later his few subordinates told him the orbiting vessels could no longer detect the smuggler's ship. He had sent a formal report and request for reinforcement himself, as was a technical duty of his office, before heading out to meet his friend at the spaceport. Asekak, having been made admiral of their small fleet, insisted it was his personal duty to investigate the ship of monsters, and unwilling to let him go alone their few warships and Grek himself had come with him.

While he could hear a soft background chatter over the comms trying to figure out what exactly they should do with the misshapen monster ship, Grek's mind was on other things. He had been spending much of their patrol time over the last month on the holonet, justifying it as his duty as Information Captain to keep up to date on all rumors and possible threat. Many terrible rumors had popped up since the sky had changed twenty days ago, and this sounded suspiciously like one of them.

There wasn't a lot of information on the groups that had popped up and started attacking people in the wake of the event publicly available, most what had been discovered supposedly being classified, but there had been a persistent rumor backed by shaky footage of a species of green savages attacking worlds across the galaxy. Said footage was usually quickly taken down with the justification of "not creating any confusion before the official explanation of events" according to the rich lot on the capitol, but Grek was pretty sure it was to stop people from panicking. Not something to be derided for sure, but it deprived the public of information they desperately needed sometimes, such as now.

He was almost certain those green brutes were the ones that had attacked X, and he had no idea how to handle the situation. Looking at the instruments, the monstrous vessel was well over twenty kilometers long and four across. It was almost like an elongated sphere, but far to uneven and studded with outcroppings to be called that. Whatever it was, there was no way they could destroy it in any reasonable amount of time, and as he met his friends' eyes, he could tell neither of them wanted to send anyone inside to try and find a solution there either. At the same time, he really didn't feel safe letting the monsters run around doing what they pleased near his home, especially with such a big ship.

The ship shuddered ever so slightly as the Gran guided it around the patchwork vessel's massive hull as the pair sought some form or solution to their looming crisis. Despite the seeming haphazard nature of the…ship's, if it could be called that, construction, there didn't seem to be any obvious vulnerabilities. The whole thing was a mass of armor and patchwork guns, most of which from their positioning and Grek's rudimentary architectural knowledge lead his to believe were likely more decorative than not given how hard resupplying them looked and shooting one spot seemed just as pointless as another. There were even jumbled masses of engines all over the place, though most seemed to have congregated in one particular spot, which Grek tentatively marked in his head as the ship's rear.

This was where the fleet had moved to, and where their freighter flagship was joining them. No one was sure if the engines were even capable of activation, let alone coordinated motion, but it was the only obvious outcropping. Thus, it was decided that the best way to disable the ship was to ensure that the ship couldn't come within range of their home. The Arcquitens lined up, drifting several kilometers from each other, not exactly a wide formation but the massive scrap ship was still moving and none of them were confident in their rudimentary training now that push had finally come to shove.

Grek checked his messages again. He had a time now for the arrival of reinforcements, straight from a .mil address, but that didn't encourage him as much as he really wished it did in the face of this metal behemoth. Either way though, it was time. Asekak gave him a nod and thus Grek activated the comms, took a deep breath, and began.

"To all personnel, this is the chief communications officer. By the admiral's command and as priorly discussed, begin bombardment on the objects engines on my mark." He took a deep breath, looked at his friends worried eyes on last time, and breathed out. "Mark."

All across the small flotilla of ships weapons began to pound into the mess of engines at full power. With the sheer size disparity, they weren't doing much damage per shot, but before Grek's hopeful eyes the engines one by one began to come apart. Some exploded, some had the couplings break and began to drift off, and some warped and bent under the deluge of shots. Just as Grek began to feel hope and believe that this might yet be a disaster averted, the first engine began to come to life. As did the point defense grid.

Calling it a point defense grid was a misnomer. There wasn't anything grid like about it, and most of the cannons weren't even meant for void operation. Indeed, the guns were salvaged tank pieces, sowed on artillery weapons, makeshift tubes without void tight hatches, and even a few flamethrowers. The range finders were terrible, and the shots flew very wide off into the void, the gunners seemingly doing it for the sheer joy of firing the weapons. A military man would have called the efforts ineffectual, laughable, and incredibly unlikely to actually hit anything. Grek however was not a military man, and neither were their colleagues.

"KRIFF KRIFF KRIFF KRIFF- "the Rodian howled as the ship shuddered its way through the sharpest series of turns it could muster. Asekak's face had was paler than he had ever seen it as he desperately navigated his way through the field of munitions the backside of the ship had begun to spew towards them. The Arquitens he could see also scattering through the lethal cloud as the massive hulk began to accelerate away, towards the distant planet. Towards home.

"After it!" Grek yelled at his friend, and for a moment the Gran hesitated. Then the ship turned to pursue, and one by one the Arcquitens followed.

OOO

Hour after hour the followed the metal behemoth, darting in and out of the range of its guns to deliver a turbolaser shot or two as close as they dared before darting away again. The metal ship had activated its shields at some point and was now mostly ignoring their small fleet, save the numerous potshots it took at them on their attack runs. One Arcquitens had been hit near head on and badly damaged, its civilian crew taking it to safety and staying there in the moments thereafter. Another had taken a glancing hit its old and resold components could not take, crippling power generation for the time being and making its impossible for the resold vessel to fight. That just left two ships, the final cruiser and the freighter, and neither was doing any visible damage.

Grek, for the tenth time in the last five minutes, checked his mail. He had been sending increasingly panicked updates to the GAR representative assigned to his sector, but no matter how many he sent, how desperately he pleaded that estimated time of arrival was not going down.

He knew it couldn't, that was just how hyperspace worked. He had seen this happen before, both in his youth and in the research he had done to prepare for what might come when war broke out. But it was something entirely different to know and _experience_ something, as he could now tell. The behemoth was descending to low orbit, and massive sheets of metal were peeling aside on its planet facing side. 'Launch bays' he realized.

He glanced over at his partner and saw him shaking. They both saw the bulky craft begin to stream out of the bottom of the hulk and knew that they must be landing craft and fighters of some kind. Both had sworn to protect their homeworld, but never expected something like this when they had. "Asekak…" the Rodian began, unsure of what to say, what to do when they both had such a high chance of _dying_, yet they both also had such an important role in home didn't burn. Was this what a soldier feels when he leaves for war, knowing he might never return?

"We have to go." The gran said, shaking all the while. Grek couldn't voice his agreement, voice his fears, voice his…anything, so he just shakily nodded. Asekak breathed in deeply and brought the controls forwards, easing the craft into re-entry. As they descended Grek could see the final light cruiser vanish into a ball of flame, causing his heart to race even faster. There was no going back now.

As they broke the cloud layer the pair could see the first of their opponents amongst a swarm of mismatched parts and cobbled together aircraft. The fighters were massive, with not a single one smaller than half again larger than the freighter he flew and were patchwork messes of wildly varying size that Grek found hard to believe could stay in the skies for any extended period of time, yet here they were. They were dive bombing the town below, the fires being the only thing now illuminating the now dark nighttime skies of his home. He could see blaster fire here and there, but it was infrequent and rapidly disappearing. Grek winced. He couldn't even imagine what it must be like for the ground-based militia.

They had one moment of surprise, and Grek was going to make it count. He opened up with the vessel's twin laser cannons, sending a fighter flaming into a building it could no longer swerve to avoid. He let out a whoop pf joy as Asekak maneuvered to line up above a second one. Another burst sent a bulky lander plunging to the ground, but the fighters had noticed them. They were turning towards them now in a mass of jockeying ramshackle craft, each trying to outpace the other, and that was what let the pair avoid the first massive burst of projectiles from the swarm. They hit a third ship as they clipped the second burst and then they were surrounded. The shields fell almost immediately and seconds later Grek could feel thud after thud rock the vessel until with a massive lurch forwards the freighter began to rapidly tip forwards and approach the ground.

'Oh' Grek realized, his mind starting to feel light. 'They must have blown the engines' Grek turned to Asekak, and the panicking Gran was screaming something but the just couldn't hear what it was. Everything felt so far off for some reason, and he felt very tired. He looked down, following the Gran's gesturing, and saw an arm sized chunk of what was likely hull plating sticking through his seat, and his torso. He stared at it dully for several seconds, before letting out a small 'Oh' of realization again. He looked up at the Gran again just in time to see the freighter collide with the ground.

O0O

The burning hulk turned end over end several times as it smashed through what was once its hanger. As it burned, so too did the city around it. As the flames crackled the sky continued to darken, this time as the dropships of the brutal invaders simply blocked out the light of the stars one by one. As they did, within the burning hulk the chronometer of Grek continued to count down.

**8:23:54 Until Republic Reinforcements Arrive**


End file.
